When Oculus Technology launched the Kickstarter for its 3D head-mounted display, the Oculus Rift, those who pledged $300 or more were told they could expect to try out a development kit in December 2012. Today, the company announced via Kickstarter that the nearly 7,500 backers who helped the company raise nearly $2.5 million will actually have to wait until March to get their hands on the hardware.

In the update, the Oculus team says the delay is due primarily to preparations for the mass Chinese manufacturing of the Rift's injection-molded plastic shell. That alone can take up to 90 days. Oculus was forced to move to a mass production process when it ended up selling thousands of development kits through Kickstarter this summer instead of the "few hundred" it had been expecting.

Rift dev kit production was also slowed when the 5.6-inch LCD screens Oculus initially wanted to use were discontinued after the company tried to order them in bulk, leading to a scramble to find a suitable replacement. The development kits will now sport 7-inch, 1200x800 resolution screens which weigh about 30 grams more than the prototypes that impressed us so much back at PAX, but also sport significantly less motion blur. Oculus says it's using the extra production time to equip the kits with a new motion sensor that updates position data up to 1,000 times per second, a speed "several times faster" than previous prototypes.

Plans for the consumer version of the Rift hardware are "still in the works" according to the company. The final commercial build will include "several exciting features" not available in the initial development kits (which are not meant for the general public). Meanwhile, the company is showing off new video of the Rift integrated with Unreal Engine 3. Hey, we've already waited at least 18 years for a head-mounted display that's actually worth the money... what's a few more months in the grand scheme of things?