The UK and EU may soon drift apart, but at least they’ll always have this last momentous day together; the day that the Oculus Rift launched at retailers.
Of course, the Rift has really been available in the UK and many European territories since its initial launch back in March. If you wanted one back then, however, you needed to go through the Oculus Store, pay extra for shipping and then probably wait at least another two months for the thing to actually show up. Now, though, it’s as simple as walking into a Game outlet and picking one off up the shelves (though the actual unit will no doubt be behind the counter), or going to Amazon and getting faster, free-er shipping. You can see a full list of countries and their respective retailers here.
Other than that, nothing’s really changed. This is still the exact same VR experience that many of us have been diving into for the five or so months; you’ll have access to all the same games and experiences. If you’re going to pick one up then make sure you check out our list of the best games on the platform.
The Rift costs £549 in the UK which, sadly, is a bit of price hike. It used to cost £499, with shipping taking it to £529. You can thank Brexit for that; the country’s vote to leave the European Union has already raised the cost of the HTC Vive over here too.
What you can’t get just yet is Oculus Touch, the company’s highly-anticipated position-tracked controllers. They’re set to revolutionize the Rift and bring it a little closer in line with the HTC Vive, which already sports similar controllers. We know it’s launching this year, but we don’t know a final date and price. We’re expecting to learn more at the Oculus Connect 3 developer conference next month, the keynote for which takes place on the morning of October 6th.
Rift’s retail launch is far from the last major VR release for the year; Sony releases PlayStation VR on October 13th and Google Daydream is also expected in 2016. In other words, it’s a very busy time to be in VR.
