The virtual reality future that visionary developer John Carmack promised us will take longer than expected.
[aditude-amp id="flyingcarpet" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":581059,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"games,","session":"B"}']The Oculus Rift 3D headset developer kits are now set to ship out in mid-March. The product, which began as a Kickstarter project, is a victim of its own success.
“When we launched our Kickstarter campaign in August, we hoped to sell a few hundred kits to game developers and virtual reality enthusiasts around the world,” reads a statement from the Oculus VR company. “Instead, we were blown away by the overwhelming response from a community of almost 10,000 backers, who raised nearly $2.5 million dollars to help us develop the Oculus Rift.”
Oculus is off the hook for the 7,500 units it originally said would ship in January 2013, but a bottleneck in the production line is forcing the startup to inform backers of this delay.
The main source of the delay is with Oculus’s manufacturer and its injection-mold tooling required to create the headset’s plastic casing.
Oculus provided a chart that shows the injection-mold process swallowing up almost two months, from mid-November into the first quarter of January. The company also linked to the following video from the television program How It’s Made, which explains plastic injection molds:
