Oculus has now announced retail availability of its first headset, confirming that the Oculus Rift is going to be available from Best Buy later this week. 48 Best Buy locations across the United States will start offering demos of the Rift and they will also have an “extremely limited” supply of Rift units that customers will be able to purchase.
This will be the first appearance that the Oculus Rift makes at a brick-and-mortar retail chain. Those who would rather purchase the headset online, the company has also confirmed that a small number of Rift units will be available for purchase online from Amazon and the Microsoft Store starting 12 pm ET on May 6th.
The announcement of limited retail availability comes at a time when many pre-order customers are still waiting for their Rift headsets to arrive. Pre-order customers who are able to get their hands on one of the very limited retail units can then get in touch with the company and cancel their pre-order without losing any of the benefits attached to it which include a free copy of EVE: Valkyrie and they will retain their place in line for the Touch motion controllers.
Oculus is pushing ahead with limited retail availability even though many of its pre-order customers would first like the company to fill their orders. Still, it feels the need to do this, so it’s doing this starting May 6th. Mark your calendars.