oculus rift cv1 unboxing (1)

It wasn’t long after Oculus opened pre-orders for the Rift in January that the unit became backordered by four months. Having held steady since that time, the backorder has now been pushed back yet another month.

The Oculus Rift launched officially on March 28th when it began shipping to Kickstarter backers and the earliest pre-orderees. If you order the headset starting today, however, Oculus estimates your Rift won’t ship until August. It isn’t clear whether the slip was due to increased demand surrounding the headset’s launch or the shipping delays that came with it.

oculus rift review photos (1)
See Also: Oculus Rift Review – Prologue to a New Reality

Last week Oculus confirmed that the initial shipments of the headset were delayed due to a component shortage. The company refunded the shipping cost on all orders up to that point and said that customers affected by the delay should see an update to their Rift order status by April 12th.

“…many Rifts will be arriving on schedule and in line with original estimates,” the company wrote in an update about the shipping delay.

The HTC Vive, which officially launched just a few days after the Rift, has held a steady backorder date of May since shortly after opening pre-orders for the unit back in February. The company has had its own shipping woes for early units apparently caused by payment processing issues, though so far this hasn’t impacted the backorder date.

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Ben Lang
Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • cdm283813

    Almost had a heart attack thinking that my pre-order was pushed back another month.

    • Eric Pipedream Leisy

      lol. totally with you on that one. phew.

  • Pearacidic

    Paragraph 1, Sentence 2: “Having held a steady since that time…” Missing word or clarification

    Paragraph 3, Sentence 3: “shipments of the headset were delayed do..” Should be “due”.

    You’re the executive editor for the site? :

    • CURTROCK

      Wow! Pointing out spelling errors on a web post..you are AWESOME, dude :)

      • Pearacidic

        Editors edit things. I’m pointing out stuff that those individuals usually catch, worth editing and just trying to see what’s up. I typically see clean, clear, and concise content here, so yeah, I guess I should ease up, but typically people in that role live for fixing grammatical errors, so.. here we are.

    • benz145

      Thanks for pointing these out. Fixed now : ). Yes, even executive editors are prone to some mistakes!

  • Foreign Devil

    So I guess we can’t expect to see this in retail stores in Canada until Christmas? Occulus is making the decision about which HMD to buy pretty easy. . . Whichever one arrives in retail first is the one I buy. I don’t want to spend $100 on shipping to Canada.

    • CURTROCK

      I’m starting to think the same way. Also, PSVR is coming too. I understand that delays happen, but now Oculus is back logged like 6 months! Order today, ships in August….which means receive September. Really? September? This product launch is looking more like a Kickstarter fulfillment effort. Starting to feel disappointment seeping in :(

      • CURTROCK

        Note: if the reason for this delay is OVERWHELMING demand for Rift, then I’m totally happy for Oculus & VR in general. I’d love to hear some sales figures for a bit of context.

      • CMcD

        I can’t get too upset about these delays simply because, no matter what, that means there is a strong desire for VR among the “masses”. Even if it is still for a niche group, that group is larger than they anticipated this early on in the stage. Sony delayed their headset because according to them demand far exceeded their original, very safe guesses. Sure enough it sold out instantly. As much as I’m bummed that my rift order within the first 4 minutes of preorders probably isn’t getting here till May, I’m still SUPER PUMPED that there is a lot more interest than anyone anticipated because that means more developers spending more money to make more experienced for VR… And that makes me happy.

    • JesusIsGay

      What is a “canada”?

  • Mike

    Why don’t Oculus and HTC just pay more to the manufacturers to ramp up production speed? Clearly they’re selling more than they expected, so they can afford to spend a little more to get their product into customer’s hands (and to prevent them from canceling).

    • Bradley Lawrence

      Manufacturing doesn’t work like that. It’s not like they just flip a switch and line 4 starts making Rifts. They have to set up and re-configure machines, make or order new tooling, set up a new material pipeline to feed the new line. And that is if they have all the necessary machines on the line already, otherwise they have to order new machine and wait for those to ship. It can take months.

      • Mike

        Hmm. How do you know it would take months, regardless of how much manpower they put into it? Are you an industrial engineer?

        • Bradley Lawrence

          My wife is, and I’m pretty close. So yes.

          edit:Just discussed it with my wife. She said 3 to 8 months depending. And that would be if they had a free line, which they absolutely would not. Every line in those factories is most likely accounted for months in advance, because an idle line doesn’t make money. Also, my estimate was only for a single part of the whole. It is highly unlikely that all of the parts of a headset are made in the same place, so add in logistical bottlenecks slowing the whole process down and giving everyone ulcers and it could take even longer.

          • Mike

            Interesting, thanks for clearing that up. Lucky for me I pre-ordered about 6 minutes after it opened.

  • Mateusz

    If people keep buying new Rifts, will never see this backlog get cleared.

  • Scott butler

    Can anybody tell me when what state is Oculus Rift coming to the UK because I pre-order on the 28th of March and I’m still waiting for it I haven’t heard nothing about it no use whatsoever just wondering can anybody tell me what date is actually come to the UK