Virtual reality headset for video gamers: A matter of perception

The first ones, which Oculus says will begin shipping next month, are still rough around the edges and are primarily aimed at game developers.

Oculus is mum on when it will ship a version for consumers, hinting that its target is next year.

If the company is successful, it will have a lot to do with Palmer Luckey, the 20-year-old founder of the company, who seems to have wandered out of a casting call for unconventional, young technology entrepreneurs. He pads around his office in bare feet, munching on cookies. He refuses a chair during a meeting, preferring to sit cross-legged on the floor.

Luckey was a home-schooled teenager living with his parents in Long Beach, Calif., when he began collecting virtual reality headsets, a habit he financed by fixing broken iPhones and Nintendo DS’s in his garage and reselling them at a profit. Luckey estimates he spent $32,000 on headsets in one year alone, about 45 of which he now has in his own collection.

While he was passionate about virtual reality, Luckey realised that none of the headsets he bought offered the kind of immersive experience he wanted from the technology. He began tinkering with headset designs of his own.

“If there had been a perfect headset, I wouldn’t have gotten

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