Turns out being first in line gives you special treatment, even in the virtual reality world.
Watch an Oculus co-founder hand-deliver the first Rift VR headset to a dude in Alaska
“You have to make sure you have fun with it or something.” No pressure!
Jason Del Rey has been a business journalist for 15 years and has covered Amazon, Walmart, and the e-commerce industry for the last decade. He was a senior correspondent at Vox.
Ross Martin, a software developer in Anchorage, Alaska, received a special delivery at his job on Saturday morning: The first Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, hand-delivered by Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey himself. Martin was the first person to preorder the Rift when the company began taking sign-ups in early January and was a told a day earlier to be prepared for a surprise delivery.
“Man, this is incredible,” Luckey, 23, said, after handing the box off to Martin. “I’ve been working on this for so long and you’re the first person to actually get one, so it’s kinda like me taking all this work and then handing it off to you. So you have to make sure you have fun with it or something.” Or something!
Martin tried on the headset but wasn’t able to take it for a test drive because he received the delivery at his office and his personal computer needed to power the headset was at home. The Rift costs $599, but Oculus also sells compatible PCs starting at $949 if a customer doesn’t own one. Facebook bought Oculus almost exactly two years ago, for $2 billion.
It has been a long time coming for Oculus fans, many of whom have not been thrilled about the wait. Luckey asked Martin how closely he follows VR.
“I try not to follow too close,” he said, “because the wait would be harder.”
Wait over.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
