We all knew that the Oculus Rift would be extremely popular, especially as it will be the first VR head-set available to consumers in 2016. However even Oculus probably didn’t expect pre-orders to sell out within just 14 minutes of going live.
But that’s exactly what happened when the Day One stock of the Oculus Rift sold out within 14 minutes of the Oculus store opening its doors, despite costing $599 and requiring a high-end PC. Anyone who managed to pre-order a rift in those 14 minutes will be receiving an Oculus Rift when it officially launches in March.
However within a quarter of an hour of opening, the shipping dates for pre-orders changed from March to April as soon as the initial stock sold out. There are still plenty of Oculus Rifts to pre-order, although at the time of writing the shipping date for any new pre-orders is June 2016. That means that Oculus have a huge order to fill and if you were hoping to grab an Oculus Rift as soon as it launched, unfortunately you are out of luck.
Oculus founder Palmer Luckey has also stated the website was having trouble with processing payments due to the high volume of purchases which were being made for pre-orders. If the demand keeps up, there may be a chance that Oculus may have to stop any further pre-orders so they can ensure they can fulfill everyone’s orders.
