The Facebook-owned Oculus VR, makers of the Oculus Rift, have just announced the acquisition of Carbon Design, whom they call “one of the premier industrial design and product engineering teams in the country.”

Exact terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Oculus says that it should close later this summer.

According to Oculus, the Carbon Design team will split their time between the Carbon studio in Seattle and the Oculus research and development offices in Redmond, WA.

Although they are just announcing the acquisition now, Carbon Design has been working with Oculus on “multiple unannounced projects” for over a year.

“A few seconds with the latest Oculus prototypes and you know that virtual reality is for real this time. From a design and engineering perspective, building the products that finally deliver consumer virtual reality is one of the most interesting and challenging problem sets ever,” said Carbon Design creative director Peter Bristol. “This is an entirely open product category. With consumer VR at its inception, the physical architectures are still unknown – We’re on the cutting edge of defining how virtual reality looks, feels, and functions.We’re incredibly excited to be part of the team and we’re looking forward to helping design the future.”

The name Carbon Design might not rings any bells – but I guarantee you know their work. Among other things, Carbon Design is responsible for the look of the Xbox 360 controller, as well as the first-gen Kinect.

Image via OculusVR.com