Oculus Rift dev kits delayed into March 2013

Oculus Rift developer kits will now ship in March 2013, instead of December, according to an update on the peripheral's Kickstarter page.

According to the firm's boss Palmer Luckey, the delay is due in part to the amount of sets the firm has had to manufacture.

"Designing, sourcing, and manufacturing thousands of developer kits is no small feat," he wrote. "Since our Kickstarter, we've been up against the wall, working around the clock to produce and distribute over 7500 units in just 4 short, crazy months.

"We've had to modify our original design for mass-manufacturing and, at the same time, balance additional features with our tight schedule. In order to accommodate the required changes, new features, and manufacturing duration, we had to shift our ship date."

Luckey went on to say the kits will be shipped in order of pledges received with the he majority of the rewards by being sent out by "mid-March."

"We may not have all 7500 kits in the first shipment, but we'll continue shipping out kits as soon as they arrive," he wrote. "We're estimating that we can have all the rewards sent out by mid-April. Any pre-orders taken post-Kickstarter are expected to ship in late April 2013, after we've delivered all the Kickstarter rewards.

"Once we've put your rewards in the mail, US residents should expect to receive them within 5-7 business days and international backers should receive theirs in 2-3 weeks, depending on the destination."

Thanks, Eurogamer.