Oculus Rift hardware event set, VR Jam finalists named

Oculus VR sends invites to the press for a consumer-related event that promises to reveal market-ready hardware. What you're going to see isn't all that revealing, but the differences between the newest developer model of the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset and the first consumer hardware are few and far between. What you're going to see at this special event for the headset isn't as important as who will be there – who will be presenting the first apps and games for the Oculus Rift as it's set for release in early 2016.

This special event will take place on June 11th, 2015 in San Francisco. The image you're seeing here is the same as Oculus VR released earlier this month when the consumer model release was first teased.

Click or tap this thumbnail for a full-sized version of the image.

Meanwhile there's one massive list of VR Jam finalists who will go on to Round 2 of judging. Amongst these names are the creators of 37 Games and 24 Apps or Experiences. Keep them in mind when you get your Oculus Rift in 2016 – they'll be on the shortlist!

Along the Trail, Andromedum, Apnea, Atlantis, Atop The Wizard's Tower, Audio Arena, Awakening (working title), Bazaar, Blind Swordsman, Captain Clark Adventures, Chibi Attack!, Circumpaint, Cityscape Repairman, Colosse: A Story in Virtual Reality, Comawake, Crashland Reborn, Crime Watch, Crossover: Multi-threaded immersive theater experience, Damnfields, Daydream Blue, and Depthorama.

Also DMZ: Memories of no man's land, Double Destruction, DRIFT, Dsync, House of Languages, Labster – Revolutionizing Life-Science Learning with VR, Lily Pad, Maiden Chaos VR, NeoS: The Universe, Neuralgia VR, Panopticon, PhaseShift, Polo, PolyDome, Private Eye – Case Files: The Wooden Lady, Pulsar Arena, and Red Riding Hunt.

And if that list wasn't enough, here's more: Ruins Of Chronos, Science360, Scorched Battalion, SMS Racing, SoundScape, Soundscape VR, Speech Center, Starport, StarTracker VR, SteamCrew VR, SURGEVRY, Tactera, Tana Pura, TECHNOLUST: THOUGHT CRIMES, Telescopic, The Bouncinators, The Curator's Mini-Museum of Natural History, The Night Cafe – An immersive tribute to Vincent van Gogh, TightropeVR, VIRTUAL HANDS: VirtPaint, Voxel Cars Vr, VR Vox, and Wendy.

Good ol' Wendy.

We'll bring you the final list when the announcement is made. Until then, head to our VR-XP portal for more virtual reality experiences!