Oculus Rift UK and Europe release date and price announced, with headset arriving in September

The headset costs £549 – without the computer that's required to power it

The new Oculus Rift VR headset is now available for consumers to buy (AP)

The Oculus Rift virtual reality headset is finally coming to UK shelves.

Oculus, which is owned by Facebook, said the headset will arrive in the UK on September 20 and cost £549. That retail price doesn’t include the super-fast computer that’s required to run it.

The headset can now be pre-ordered in a range of retailers. Those same shops will be running demo experiences before the headset is actually launched, to allow people to try out the headset.

Players can sign up to head to shops and play game including The Climb, where they try out extreme rock climbing, and alien planet discovery game Farlands. It will also include a film, Henry, which is about a hedgehog and is narrated by Elijah Wood.

Many of the shops that are selling the headset have seen increased in virtual reality already. John Lewis says that sales of Samsung Gear VR, which uses a phone but is powered by Oculus technology, have increased 310 per cent in the last six weeks.

People who buy the game will still have to buy a computer to plug it into and actually run it. But they will at least get one game free – Lucky’s Tale – and be able to buy more through the headset’s special app store.

The news came as Minecraft, one of the biggest games in the world, was officially launched on the Rift. It was already available on the Samsung Gear VR, but now anyone with the latest version of Windows will be able to play it for free.