Most packages of Index, Valve’s high-end VR headset released earlier this year, are sold out in a handful of regions following last week’s announcement of Half-Life: Alyx.

Update (December 2nd, 2019): Just days after we spotted that Index has been sold out in some regions following the announcement of Half-Life: Alyx,  the Index ‘full kit’ now notes that “delivery before December 25th cannot be guaranteed” due to “recent high demand” on the US and Canadian Steam stores.

The other packages (headset + controllers, headset-only, and controllers-only) in the US are still out of stock with a “Back in Stock Soon” message in place of the “Add to Cart” button.

Original Article (November 27th, 2019): If Valve is counting on Half-Life: Alyx being a killer app for VR, early signs suggest they may just get their wish.

While Valve’s Index headset was backordered at launch earlier this year, a few months later it became available for ‘immediate shipping’ and stock appears to have held steady ever since… until now.

Following last week’s announcement of Half-Life: Alyx, most Index packages—the headset-only, controllers-only, and headset + controller packages—are currently listed in the US and Canadian stores as sold out with a ‘Back in Stock Soon’ message in place of the order button.

As for the ‘full kit’ package (headset + controllers + base stations) in the US, Valve is advising that anyone ordering today can “expect delivery before December 25th,” nearly a month from now.

Valve sells Index in 31 countries; so far we’ve confirmed stock shortages in the US and Canada.

Update (November 28th, 2019): Road to VR reader Immersive Computing reports that the UK version of the Steam store is showing regular 4-8 day delivery times on all Index kits. We’ve also confirmed that availability in Italy is nominal.

If you can access the Steam store in a region other than the US, UK, and Italy, please check the Index page on Steam and drop us a comment below with what kind of shipping availability you see on each kit.

SEE ALSO
'Half-Life: Alyx' Will Run on All SteamVR Headsets, Free for Index Owners

While Valve has confirmed that Half-Life: Alyx will be compatible with all PC VR headsets via Steam, the game is expected to play best on Index thanks in part to the advanced finger-tracking capabilities of the Index controllers. Valve also announced that it would be giving Half-Life: Alyx away to any owners of Index hardware (headset or controllers).

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  • Immersive Computing

    Valve Index has no availability issues in the UK, every option is available with 4-8 business day for shipping. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/80643b9773eef0e8cb14531ceec26c050e28f79d1de8665ff4653d936940fa35.png

    • benz145

      Thanks for checking on this, we’ll update the piece with the info!

      • bakhesh

        I bought an Index 2 weeks ago, and the shipping time was listed as just 4 days, so they are giving themselves a bit more wriggle room

  • Hello
    The Japanese distributer’s product page list the controllers only package as sold out. The other packages are available. Greetings from a chilly Japan.
    Hans O. Karlsson
    CTO, Mimir LLC (A VR Production Company)

    • benz145

      Thanks Hans!

  • DanDei

    In Germany the shop also says: 4-8 days business days for shipping but later in the ordering process they say that delays are possible due to a spike in recent orders.

    • benz145

      Got it, thanks @dandei:disqus

  • gamechanger

    Fully available in Poland : ]

    • benz145

      Thank you!

  • In Hungary still available

    • benz145

      Thanks for the report : )

  • Brian Brown

    I’m kind of curious how high it is on the Steam sales charts internationally. In the US, it’s been number first or second for a while now for the full kit. The five dollar Steam controller is number one, with the Index number two right now, and that’s during a Steam sale.

  • George T

    Not even available in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore or Korea… Why not write a story on how Valve snubs half the world instead of about stock levels. Maybe do some actual journalism and ask them when the rest of the world can join in and actually buy the index?

    • Gerald Terveen

      na – those countries are bad countries with bad gamers that do not deserve access! this is all about making a point and not about trying to balance production with demand.

      • Arcticu Kitsu

        What……………

      • sfmike

        You sound like a Trump Republican.

        • Gerald Terveen
        • Ellie 187

          still bitter about the hag losing in 2016 in spectacular fashion?? buck up buttercup you only have another 5 years of him and then he will be gone.

          • Jerald Doerr

            Lol!!! He said another five years! Lol… If that man-hag wins again I guess I’ll be jumping off the Empire State building a second time!

          • Ian Malign

            Prepare thyself. He is going to.

        • fdad

          Lmao. NPC mentality is as true as they say.

        • KUKWES

          Remove your politics from my VR ingestion.

      • Mike Porter

        I see people don’t comprehend sarcasm

        • Gerald Terveen

          There are two kinds of people in the world!
          Those that can extrapolate from incomplete information.

          It’s the same for sarcasm. No matter how obvious you make it.

          • Bob Smith

            But … what is the other kind of person?

            Hah! Agree completely. And I hate having to explain that I’m being sarcastic, or even worse, asked to add the s/ preemptively. Swift would now need to write “jk” at the end of his proposal.

        • david vincent

          You can never be 100% certain if a stranger on the net is sarcastic or just a troll. That’s why we use smileys.

    • RockstarRepublic

      Dumb comment. Valve is not a massive hardware manufacturing company, in fact they only started up their own manufacturing center in the US where as most companies end up relying entirely on chinese manufacturing. Not saying that this is the case here, but clearly their line of product is not on some massive global scale and it is incremental. VR is still in the early adoption phase.

      You can clearly see they are expanding the range of regions they have headsets in. If its not in the region you want, then you just have to be patient or find someone/retailer who is willing to bring those headsets over and resell them locally.

      • Immersive Computing

        @Rockstar Republic

        Valve partnered with Flex to make the Steam controller in the US at a factory in buffalo grove Illinois. That’s the factory in the video from a few years back, and it’s where the 2.0 base stations are manufactured.

        Headsets and controllers are marked as “made in china” my understanding is their partner is ODM (original design manufacturer) Goertek who used to make the Rift CV1 amongst other VR headsets.

  • Arcticu Kitsu

    Even though my headset shipped out fairly late because of American Thanksgiving & Black Friday its still available here in Canada.

  • Jonas Stillhoff Lund

    Hello. Just did a check in Denmark and all packages says 4-8 days:-)

    • benz145

      Thanks @jonasstillhofflund:disqus!

  • Andrew Jakobs

    I’m still not sure if I would buy the HTC Vive Pro starter kit (black friday) or the Valve Index. I hate that the original vive doesn’t support the 2.0 lighthouses, otherwise it wouldn’t be that hard of a choice (I’m wanting one for development, but I want to do more headsets than the index alone).. vive headsets are cheaply available due to people selling their headsets/controllers without the lighthouse..

    • Ellie 187

      as far as quality of the optics, I recommend the index (higher refresh rates make all the difference)… also those controllers are a delight to use compared to the vive wands

      • Immersive Computing

        @andrew jacobs. Buy an Index full kit and pick up a Vive Pro headset which works with index kit. I was tempted during black Friday as Vive Pro headset was selling for £599…

        • Andrew Jakobs

          I bought myself the Vive Pro starter kit due them having the 1.0 lighthouses and the original wand controllers, so I can pickup a cheap original vive headset for testing purposes (as that’s still a pretty large group of people). Will buy the Index early next year when I’m a bit further along with my development. (but will keep the extra functionalities of the knuckle controllers in mind during current development).

  • Гена Воробьев

    You can check availability for yourself in any country. Just open Steam page in browser incognito mode and add ?cc=[country code] to the address.

    Like this: https://store.steampowered.com/valveindex?cc=it (Italy) or https://store.steampowered.com/valveindex?cc=uk (United Kingdom)

    So far it seems like Index is available in most of the countries.

    • benz145

      Great tip, thanks!

  • Good news, but I think that Valve is not manufacturing that many, so it’s easy that even a minimum pike makes them sold out. Anyway, good news, because this means that there has been a pike :)

    And compliments to @immersivecomputing:disqus for having been mentioned!

    • aasdfa

      yupp and opened up to the majority of countries right before the holiday season. It was all intentional

  • RedSpeedster34

    In Canada, Valve opened up ordering and changed from “back in stock soon” to “add to cart” ordering last night (Friday) after going out of stock some time in the day. However, the website shows a “you may not get this by Dec 25th” message. I bought relatively soon after ordering reopened, so hopefully I’m high in the queue.

  • benz145

    Were your ears touching the headphones prior to this?

    • Immersive Computing

      Left ear was too close to ear speaker whilst right ear had correct gap, left was very uncomfortable at volume and adjusting left/right balance started allowing background noise to bleed into the left. The red spacer in this orientation places the ear speaker about 10mm further off the headband so both can be run at power and balanced.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/00b5e50666d86585571f37171c7d071fc5d920ebfdf55a76ddda849b1b5e9daa.jpg

      • M Rob

        Good fix!. I’m curious if this was due to a product defect or, if its not too delicate a question, ummm… asymmetric auditory anatomy?

        • Immersive Computing

          Just ears showing normal human asymmetry, and an ear speaker with no depth adjustment to compensate

      • benz145

        Cool, glad you could fix it. Did you design/print this spacer yourself?

        Thanks as always for your thoughtful comments and interesting photos with them!

  • DanDei

    Country: Germany
    Ordered the only Headset option on Nov 27th and up untill now the status is:

    Shipping Status: Processing
    Delivery delays are expected due to high order volume. We’ll ship your order as soon as we can and send you an email with tracking information once that happens.

  • dogbite

    Canada here. Ordered Index controllers on the 22nd. Order shows shipped (as of today) but no tracking# yet.
    I was pleased when Valve finally got around to supporting their Canadian customers. Some of us were feeling left out and as a Steam member since it’s launch, I was particularly feeling we were being considered unimportant. Nice to see the high demand here has shown them otherwise.

  • leRAFs

    From France; Ordered Headset only on Nov 29th, the shipping status just changed today to shipped.
    Can’t wait! :D

  • RockstarRepublic

    I had them in my cart for the longest time, went to order and it wouldn’t go through due to being out of stock. Just goes to show hesitation can really bite you in the arse. I honestly never expected them to actually sell out of the headset and headset controller options, in fact I thought that would logically be the the stock they would have the most excess of.

    I’d love for Valve to implement some kind of inventory quantity gauge so we can get a general idea of how much is left in stock.