Oculus Rift VR headsets pre-order to begin soon

Oculus Rift VR headsets will be available for pre-order on 6 January at 8am PCT (4pm GMT). The launch coincides with the CES 2016 in Las Vegas.

Oculus says every pre-ordered Rift headset will include some free goodies. The Facebook-owned company is offering its prospective buyers two additional games, one of which is Lucky's Tale, a 3-D virtual reality game, still in the pre-launch stages. The other game on offer is EVE: Valkyrie, a dogfight game based in outer space.

Although Oculus is yet to announce a date for the release of its Rift headset or the price, the company's co-founder, Palmer Luckey, is scheduled to answer all questions in a Reddit AMA on Wednesday (6 January).

There is a lot of speculation and interest surrounding the cost of the virtual reality headset. In May last year, Brenden Iribe, the head of Oculus, claimed that the cost of a Riftheadset and a PC capable of operating it should come to around $1,500 (£1000, €1,385). Rift was first introduced in its developmental kit version in March 2013, after which Facebook acquired Oculus for $2bn (£1.4bn, €1.8bn).

Oculus has partnered with Samsung to develop the Gear VR, which is a smartphone-powered headset, currently priced at $99 (£67, €91). However, unlike the Gear VR, the Rift provides an enhanced 3-D experience for its users. It is designed to track users through 3 dimensional spaces, by way of a wired connection to a PC.

Other planned Rift VR launches include games titled Edge of Nowhere (a horror game), Chronos (a hack and slash RPG) and Adrift (a space survival game). Oculus users will also be allowed to stream non-VR games from Xbox One.