Ross Martin has received a surprise delivery after signing up for the Oculus Rift VR last January. Palmer Luckey, one of Oculus Rift VR founders, personally brought the first ever package and delivered it to Oculus' very first customer.
On March 26, after several flight delays, and wearing a bright red Hawaiian shirt, Luckey reached Anchorage, Alaska to deliver the package to the first person who signed up for the device.
Signed by Palmer Luckey and other founders of the Oculus Rift, the very first package was preordered by Ross Martin way back in January.
"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," Luckey says, while handing over the console to Martin.
The news broke as Facebook posted a live stream of Luckey conducting the delivery. The video, lasting a little more than five minutes, shows Martin leading Luckey inside an office where Luckey helped Martin unbox the device. The clip, however, did not show Martin plugging the device and actually using it because Martin's personal computer was at home.
Ross Martin is a software developer working for Axiom Data Science. Martin says he plans on playing Eve: Valkyrie on the Oculus Rift with it and is also a fan of first person shooter games.
"We are both big gamers, and we were both homeschooled as kids. The biggest difference is that I grew up with surfboards while he grew up with sled dogs," says Luckey, seeing that he and Martin share certain similarities.
The Oculus Rift was born as a Kickstarter project in August 2012. After gaining much public interest, the project was bought by Facebook for $2 billion in 2014. Not surprisingly, the live stream and video showing the Oculus Rift's delivery to Martin was first posted in Facebook and has since gained more than 75,000 views in less than 14 hours from posting. The initial console from the initial Kickstarter project had since been released, but the console delivered by Luckey to Martin is the first commercially produced product after the Kickstarter release.
The Oculus Rift retails for $599 and is available at its website. Preorders made in January will be available on the last week of March while current orders made today will be available in July.
Personally delivering the first Rift to Alaska!
Posted by Palmer Freeman Luckey on Saturday, March 26, 2016
Photo: Rafael Valentim | Flickr
