We've been talking about the Oculus Rift since 2012, and developers have been tinkering with dev kits for the last three years. But the virtual reality headset is finally ready for primetime—sort of.

Oculus today said that the long-awaited consumer version of the Oculus Rift will arrive in the first quarter of 2016, with pre-orders beginning later this year—presumably in time for the holiday rush.

"In the weeks ahead, we'll be revealing the details around hardware, software, input, and many of our unannounced made-for-VR games and experiences coming to the Rift," the company said in a blog post. "Next week, we'll share more of the technical specifications here on the Oculus blog."

The Oculus Rift headset made a splash in 2012 when it surpassed its Kickstarter goal by almost $2.2 million, and promised a virtual reality designed specifically for video games "that will change the way you think about gaming forever."

The first dev kit arrived the following year, and we found that while "it's far from a consumer product, the Oculus VR Oculus Rift is a surprisingly simple to use virtual reality headset that only lacks software support."

It was enough to nab $16 million in new funding, and gaming legend John Carmack, though. And last year, there was the $2 billion Facebook acquisition, a new version of the Oculus Rift, dubbed DK2 (see video below), and chatter about when we might see a consumer version.

In November, the company said that consumer version was still "many months" away. "We're all hungry for it to happen," CEO Brendan Iribe said at the time. "We're getting very close. It's months, not years away. But many months."

With the Facebook acquisition, the Oculus Rift will still have a gaming aspect, but Mark Zuckerberg said he wants to expand into everyday tasks, too—from shopping to attending sporting events.

Meanwhile, Oculus is no longer the only VR shop in town. Other companies have jumped into the space, from Sony and Samsung to Google, LG, and HTC.