Oculus Rift is available for pre-order and demo

Oculus has announced that online pre-order of Rift is available from retailers in Europe and Canada and shipping and in-store availability will begin from September, 20 priced at $599.99 and demo expriences will also be rolling out across Europe and canada over the next several weeks. The pre-order will be available from a range of stockist partners.

UK: Amazon.co.uk, John Lewis, Curry's PC World, GAME and even London department store Harrods.

France: Amazon.fr and FNAC

Germany: Amazon.de, MediaMarkt and Saturn

Canada: Best Buy and Microsoft Store Online

Yes, this means you can finally pick your product in retails local store or jump into the online and take the product directly instead of waiting months for Oculus' web store to catch up with the order. Oculus has also launched a site, Oculus Live, to keep track of where you'll be able to play with a Rift ahead of purchase.

The Oculus Rift is a virtual really headset developed and manufactured by Oculus VR, released on 28th March, 2016. Oculus proposed a Kickstarter campeign in 2012 to collect the fund of Rift's development. In March, 2014 Facebook purchased Oculus for $2 billion.

The Rift has an OLED display, 1080 x 1200 resolution per eye, a 90Hz refresh rate and 110 degree field of view. It has integrated headphones which provide a 3D audio effect, rotational and positional tracking. The positional tracking system is called "Constellation" is performed by a USB stationary infrared sensor that is picking up light that is emitted by IR LEDs that are iintegrated into the hmd. The sensor normally sits on the user's desk. This creates 3D space, allowing for the user to use the Rift while sitting, standing or walking around the same room.

The Oculus Rift is a virtual reality system that completely immerses you inside the virtual world. "Virtual reality is a very experiential product and exprience, it's something that you really have to see to believe - like you did - you're maybe a little skeptical before, you've heard of VR in the past and it hasn't really worked, but now it does and it works in an incredible way, but you have to see it to really believe it" - Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe - "And we feel like once you see it, you're gonna want it. So getting it into... broad retail around the world is going to be very important to the success of VR and to the success of Oculus and the Rift, and we're working on that as we speak. We're going to be in retail staering in April"

Rift demos will be available in more than 600 retail locations across the US, Canada and Europe. There will be many more games available for the device once it goes on sale as well as more to be announced at Gamescon in Cologne, Germany. But there are lots of things should know about the Facebook owned headset.

1. Waiting list for Oculus Rift:
   Though the product is launched in April, it is not easy to get the product immediately. There was an instant backlog when pre-orders opened in February and even now you have to wait over a month to get the headset once the order is done.
2. VR Ready Computer Setup:
   You can't run your Oculus Rift - or HTC Vive on any PC. For this you have to upgrade your graphics card. You'll need a minimum of an Intel i5-4590(so a mid - 2014 chip), 8GB of RAM, three USB 3 and at least one USB 2 port, Windows 7 SPI 64 bit or newer and an Nvidia GTX 970 or AMD R9 290 graphics card.
3. Rift MAC Version is not coming soon:
   If you're a MAC user and waiting on Oculus to bring MAC support to RIFT, don't hold your breath. "Linux Support is on the roadmap post-launch, MAC support is on the roadmap post-decent Apple hardware release, whenever that is." - told company creator, Palmer Luckey.
4. Specs are same as HTC Vive, but Vive feels better:
   Rift and Vive have identical spec sheets, resolution of 1200 x 1080 pixels per eye, a 110-degree field of view and refresh rate is 90Hz. In all honesty, Vive just edges ahead of the Rift to its brighter, higher-contrast display and sharper Fresnel lenses.
5. Rift is cheaper than Vive but more expansive than Playstation VR:
   Oculus Rift sits in the middle at £500 where HTC Vive is more expensive at £690. The cheapest option , by far, is Sony's Playstation VR.
   
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