Virtual reality has taken a step closer to becoming a reality for mainstream consumers this afternoon, as pre-orders have opened for the Oculus Rift.
The device will come with a hefty price tag of €700 - plus shipping - for Irish customers. Customers will not be charged until the device ships, with launch currently scheduled for March.
Full details can be found on the Oculus website.
The Rift is not the first VR device to hit the market - in November, for example, the Samsung Gear was launched, in collaboration with the Facebook-owned Oculus. However, the Rift promises to be a more substantially more powerful piece of kit.
As well as the dedicated headset and tracking device, the Rift will come with an Xbox One controller. Anybody who pre-orders will also receive two free games - platformer Lucky's Tale and space combat game Eve: Valkyrie.
A dedicated pair of 'tracked controllers' named Oculus Touch is set to launch later this year, aimed at allowing players to become more fully immersed in virtual reality worlds.
Anybody looking to invest in a Rift should pay attention to the technical specifications. Oculus recommends users have NVIDIA GTX 970, AMD 290 or greater video cards, as well as powerful Intel CPUs and 8GB+ of RAM - specifications that will put full VR out of reach for all but the beefiest of PCs.
Oculus founder Palmer Luckey has previously warned that "VR will become something everyone wants before it becomes something everyone can afford".
There is a good reason for the demanding specs. A computer needs to be able to sustain a very high frame rate to output to virtual reality devices - otherwise, users could find themselves experiencing motion sickness.
However, those unable or unwilling to jump on the Oculus bandwagon from the off will have plenty of alternatives in the near future. HTC and Valve are set to launch the HTC Vive later this year while Sony has said they are planning to launch the Playstation VR device in the first half of 2016.
Playstation VR will only require a Playstation 4 to use, which will mean it will be available to millions of customers who do not have the powerful PCs required by the other devices.
Oculus announced earlier this week that anybody who originally paid for an Oculus Rift development kit on Kickstarter will receive a free consumer model.
