Oculus Go standalone headset launches at $199

Oculus Go is now available for $199 - a price-point that Oculus believes will, "radically change the game for consumer VR."

This is Oculus VR's first standalone headset, so it doesn't require a PC or a smartphone to run. Nevertheless, the company has promised that its 538ppi 2560 x 1440 WQHD, fast-switch LCD display will offer, "the best optics of any VR system we've built."

Oculus Go is now available in 23 countries, priced at $199 for the 32GB model and $249 for the 64GB model. There are already 1,000 games and apps available for the device.

This is Oculus VR's clearest attempt yet at opening up VR to a large consumer audience, with the standalone aspect of Oculus Go's design one of key selling points. The company is also working on a standalone device for the high-end VR market.

"This is going to be an exciting year," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told investors after its recent financial results. "Oculus Go is coming out. We have the prototype and the developer kit around the higher end standalone coming out as well.

"I don't know exactly when [VR is] going to be a big deal. When we started talking about this I said that I thought this was going to be a 10-year journey before this was really a mainstream major platform, and I think the reality is that Facebook needs to be investing before it is a big thing."