Free Oculus Rift for some Kickstarter backers
Did you pledge for a headset back in 2012? If you did, you're getting a free Kickstarter Edition Oculus Rift.
One day before Oculus Rift preorders begin, Oculus VR has special announcement for people who supported the headset during its initial run on Kickstarter back in 2012.
The Facebook-owned company on Tuesday announced that everyone who pledged for a Rift development kit (those pledges started at $275) will get a free "Kickstarter Edition Oculus Rift."
If that's you, all you have to do is fill out a survey from Kickstarter before February 1 and provide a shipping address. You'll need to live in one of the 20 countries that Oculus Rift launches in, though these were not specified. Oculus says it's working on an alternative for people who don't live in those countries.
"You were there at the beginning of our journey -- we couldn't have done it without you," the Oculus team said.
Oculus Rift's Kickstarter campaign started in August 2012 and blew past its $250,000 funding target in under a day. In March 2014, social networking giant Facebook acquired Oculus VR for $2 billion.
The headset may be popular with gamers, but Facebook plans to leverage the technology to other industries.
"Facebook plans to extend Oculus' existing advantage in gaming to new verticals, including communications, media and entertainment, education, and other areas," Facebook said in a statement back in 2014. "Given these broad potential applications, virtual reality technology is a strong candidate to emerge as the next social and communications platform."
Mark Zuckerberg added: "Mobile is the platform of today, and now we're also getting ready for the platforms of tomorrow. Oculus has the chance to create the most social platform ever, and change the way we work, play and communicate."
Oculus Rift preorders will open tomorrow, January 6, at which time we're likely to learn at least its price and possibly the release date. We'll have all the news for you as it's announced.
All Oculus Rift headsets will come with an Xbox One controller and a free copy of Lucky's Tale, a platformer from the designer of Words With Friends. Everyone who preorders the device (and those who are eligible for the Kickstarter edition) also gets a free copy of CCP's space dogfighting game Eve: Valkyrie.