Oculus Rift preorder delays get weirder as VR headsets hit Best Buy this weekend
That's great news for people who haven’t bought a Rift yet—but less great for early adopters still waiting for their preorders to ship.
The Oculus Rift launch is, to put it politely, a total mess. Officially “released” (and reviewed) at the end of March, those who preordered received emails shortly thereafter saying their shipments had been delayed a month or two.
So it strikes me as a bit weird that people will be able to buy the Rift at retail next week. From today’s blog post: “A small number of Rifts will be available for purchase at select Best Buy stores starting May 7 and online from Microsoft and Amazon, starting May 6 at 9 a.m. PST. Quantities will be extremely limited while we catch up on Rift pre-orders.”
And if you want to wait in line again after already waiting in line: “We know that many pre-order customers are still waiting for their Rifts, so we’re offering those customers a chance to purchase Rift from retail instead. Starting May 6th, if you’re interested, simply go to your order status and let us know you’ve purchased a Rift at retail, and we’ll cancel your pre-order.”
Meanwhile, order a Rift direct from Oculus today and you won’t see it until August, due to some as-yet-unspecified component shortage and a failure to stockpile to meet demand. Hopefully the delays are just making people anticipate the Rift more and not causing them to lose interest in VR.