After being backordered by weeks in many regions, Oculus Quest is now “unavailable” from Oculus in 17 out of 23 regions where the unit is sold, including the United States, Canada, and much of Europe. Facebook says the Coronavirus outbreak is to blame.

Responding to a Road to VR inquiry about Oculus Quest becoming “unavailable” in many regions, a Facebook spokesperson shared the following statement:

“Oculus Quest has been selling out in some regions due to high demand. That said, like other companies we’re expecting some additional impact to our hardware production due to the Coronavirus. We’re taking precautions to ensure the safety of our employees, manufacturing partners and customers, and are monitoring the situation closely.”

The Coronavirus, a novel respiratory virus, began in China with the first reported case on December 31st, 2019. Since then the virus has seen more than 28,000 confirmed cases and 565 deaths, according to the World Health Organization. While the Coronavirus has spread to 24 other countries to date, 99% of cases have been confined to China.

Since the holidays, Quest has been consistently backordered in many regions as Facebook has struggled to keep up with demand for the headset. With the headset now “unavailable” through the official Oculus site, the company is preventing its backorder queue from growing further.

At the time of writing, Quest is “unavailable” in the following 17 regions.

  • United States
  • Austria
  • Belgium
  • Canada
  • Denmark
  • Finland
  • France
  • Germany
  • Iceland
  • Italy
  • Netherlands
  • Norway
  • Poland
  • South Korea
  • Spain
  • Sweden
  • Switzerland

Addressing the question of whether or not its safe to receive packages that originate in China in light of the virus, the World Health Organization advises:

“Yes, it is safe. People receiving packages from China are not at risk of contracting the new coronavirus. From previous analysis, we know coronaviruses do not survive long on objects, such as letters or packages.”

The Rift S headset has also had spotty availability since the holidays but Facebook didn’t mention any expected impact for the headset in the statement, possibly because Lenovo handles Rift S manufacturing (unlike Quest).

Facebook gave no indication of when it expects Quest to be once again available, other than to say, “we are working to restore availability as soon as possible.

Since sometime in January, Valve’s Index headset has also been unavailable in almost all regions where it’s sold, though the company hasn’t said the shortage is related to the Coronavirus.

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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."
  • gothicvillas

    Good. Now let’s start making stuff at home shall we

    • sfmike

      Sorry those greedy American workers cut into corporate profits to much with their demands for a living wage and medical benefits.

  • BringBackTecmoBowl

    scalpers are rubbing their hands

  • Mateusz Pawluczuk

    I know Tilt Five is facing a similar problem with production lines being impacted by the outbreak.

  • Finzz

    Correct that to ‘sometime since mid-December, the Valve Index has been unavailable.’

    • adsf

      someones salty….

  • Foreign Devil

    screw it i’ll just get a Rift-S . . . way cheaper anyways and I don’t plan to take VR on the raod.

  • As someone said, in this period due to the Chinese New Year, productivity of factories in China is mostly zero anyway. We’ll discover on monday how many people will actually return to work in factories now

  • I really like this channel, always updated. :) I’d like to recommend a VR AR news site that I really like:
    https://www.caesarvr.com/