There’s been a serious demand for pre-orders of the consumer Oculus Rift since going live Wednesday, and if you haven’t thrown your credit card at Oculus yet, you may be waiting until as late as June to get your hands on one.

Oculus founder Palmer Luckey tweeted before pre-orders went live Wednesday that there’s “no chance of Rift pre-orders ‘selling out’ [and] we will keep taking pre-orders for a long as people want EVE: Valkyrie.”

This was however before a massive outpouring of support sent the pre-order queue back to June. The first wave of Rifts are due on March 28th to customers in over 20 countries.

oculus rift ship date

Luckey told Polygon in an interview that “[w]e sold through a lot faster than we expected […] I can’t talk about numbers, but we sold through in 10 minutes what I thought we were going to sell through in a few hours, which is one of the reasons the site was beginning to buckle.”

In fact, web traffic to Oculus’ store front was so heavy when the pre-order counter finally hit 00:00, the site went down for more than a few tense minutes.

There is a small silver lining in the mad rush for pre-orders though. Some customers “may see their ship date move forward as fraudulent orders are weeded out,” said Luckey. Customers yet to pre-order may not be so fortunate though, as the June ship date has held since this morning.

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Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • Kijutsu

    March delivery here!

  • MasterElwood

    April!

  • smittah

    March! got my order in 6min after the launch.

    • MasterElwood

      HOW??? Took me 37 Minutes!

      • I know right? 44 mins for me; each step in the confirmation process a game level unto itself, requiring constant refreshing and retyping, hoping that maybe this time I’ll defeat the evil red “There was a problem with your information”-Boss. Luck of the draw, I guess? lol

      • smittah

        It was 8:06am 6min after the launch when I did it. Also I used a CC and did not use Paypal. I read a few comments where people were having authentication issues trying to use Paypal.

    • Navin Bhandari

      how do u preorder one?..or have i missed the boat!!

      • MasterElwood

        Oculus.com

  • Tsunvsmoon

    March but might as well say April as that is when I’ll receive it

  • cdm283813

    After maybe 5 minutes of trying I got through but paused for like 2 minutes in sticker shock. I was like screw it and I still managed to get March.

  • SatisfiedInSeattle

    Man, my confirmation email is stamped 8:03amPST. Had no problem at all.

  • crim3

    My hesitation cost me to be one of those waiting for the CV1 in June. I really hope things will be also quicker than expected when they begin to actually ship the units.

    • de Havilland

      “My hesitation cost me to be one of those waiting for the CV1 in June.” Hesitation? NOT my hesitation! I was there 15 Min into the countdown ─ but Switzerland has never, not even now, made it into the list of countries. Hope that by June (or later?) I’m happy with my VIVE and may show Oculus the finger…

  • Raphael

    Yes, to those saying March… it’s April when you receive it.

  • Lucio Lima

    What are “fraudulent orders”? This includes virtual addresses? Many people yiveram to use virtual addresses because their countries are not on the list!

    • MasterElwood

      some people had scripts running and ordered 100 or more to sell them on ebay. That’s what they clean up.

  • Tomasz Dowgielewicz

    745 Euro (with shipping) Makse me think so much time that my rifft will be on may :(

  • Foreign Devil

    So that “2nd quarter” release date we were all quoted is only for a select few people who pre-ordered really early? Everyone else is getting it in June or later I guess. Maybe when they announced the “touch” controls where coming out mid-summer they already knew that was when most people would be getting their Rift anyways.

  • David Glenn

    it boils down to: I will get it when I get it! When I ordered they told me around April. If I get it in March, Fine! If I don’t get it until May, I won’t dwell over it! I just play with what I have until that time and I may still be in development of my VR stuff at that time. I have a VR unit to get buy with in the meantime. Sooner or later, I will get to it and Sooner or later I will get it. The way things are going, I might be playing with Vive or Hololens before I get around to even opening the Box!

  • Ben Robertson

    in this case the early birds get the worm, or pounds the keyboard and sheiks at the screen for 45 minutes then gets the worm 60 days later than expected.

    I am surprised they did not learn the lesson from DK2, it was pretty much a shitty experience.

    not complaining but just voicing opinion and feed back for future releases

  • Jean Thompson

    HEHE I got mine like 5 min after launch, on my cell phone! I was on break at work.

  • Ian Shook

    I ordered mine a week ago and It was June then, too.

  • Ian Shook

    I really wish I’d known that the payment comes out only when your rift ships. I could’ve ordered within minutes, but I waited to make sure money was in the right acct etc. Now the money has to just sit there, waiting.

    • MasterElwood

      They told us month ago. Shit you didn’t know. :-(

  • Dirk Disco

    Receiving it in June, oh well. Still can’t wait.