Fans of the highly anticipated Oculus Rift can rejoice, as Palmer Luckey, founder of the Facebook subsidiary Oculus VR, announced that the manufacturing process for the consumer version of the virtual reality device is going well and that it is on track for a first quarter release next year, according the International Business Times.

The road to the release of the consumer version of the device has been long and tedious. Founded in 2012 via an extremely popular Kickstarter campaign, Oculus VR was ultimately snapped up by Facebook in 2014 for $2 billion.

Oculus VR has further announced on Monday that it has started shipping out SDK 1.0 and prototypes of the device to developers who are creating launch titles for the platform. According to the company, developers would need early access to the technology, in order for them to develop games that would make the most out of Oculus Rift's capabilities, reports PC World.

"If you're shipping a Rift title in Q1, you'll need early access to Rift hardware and new platform features to finalize your game or application," the team wrote. The Rift SDK 1.0 and runtime include features tied to the consumer product, so we've currently limited the release to developers putting final touches on launch titles," Oculus said on a statement, according to PC Mag.

Despite the developments and announcements, Oculus VR has remained elusive about the final price of the device, though speculations suggest that it would be priced above $350. With the cost of a high-end gaming PC in the mix, gamers who would like to take advantage of device's capabilities would most probably shell out at least $1,500 in order to have an adequate Oculus Rift experience.

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