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According to IGN and Polygon, it seems as if Oculus has at long last committed to a release window for its virtual reality headset the Oculus Rift and we’re to expect it in Q1 2016!

Sources for this news is unclear, so treat with caution for the moment, but reputable news outlets IGN and Polygon are reporting that Oculus are today announcing the release of the consumer version (CV1) of the Oculus Rift headset.

Update: The IGN story looks now to have been pulled, with a 404 error at the above URL now showing. However, since then, Engadget has also published the news too.

Update 2 (06/05/2015 12:48 GMT): IGN page is now back.

Update 3 (06/05/2015 13:05 GMT): Seems the original source Looks like we have confirmation in this tweet from Oculus VP of product Nate Mitchell:

Extremely excited to announce that the Oculus Rift will be shipping Q1 2016! We can’t wait to get it in your hands. pic.twitter.com/TVquKTQJjx — Nate Mitchell (@natemitchell) May 6, 2015

Further, the blog post presumably referred to by previous sources has now appeared here.

According to both sources, Oculus have stated that the retail virtual reality headset will be largely similar to the Crescent Bay headset, the feature prototype revealed at Oculus’ inaugural ‘Connect’ conference in September last year and which has since been demonstrated at trade shows.

Exact specifications of the consumer hardware is as yet unknown, but we know that the Crescent Bay does include dual display panels and uses fresnel lenses. Other than that, we know from the prototypes the unit includes sub-millimeter optical positional head tracking extended to 360 degrees over the DK2.

We’re waiting for official confirmation from Oculus before breaking out the champagne, but it does seem at long last the road to commercial virtual reality will really hit it’s first major waypoint at the close of 2015 / opening of 2016. Let the hype train run!

This story is breaking – we’ll add details as we receive them.

Featured Image credit: Engadget