Oculus Rift is one of the more popular VR headsets. Starting as a Kickstarter project, its creators sold out to Facebook, disappointing thousands of backers who had invested their money in this project. How is the Oculus Rift performing on the market?
Game Rant reports that BestBuy is closing 200 out of the 500 Oculus Demo Station it has operation in its chain of stores. According to an information brought up by BestBuy, during the Christmas holidays they would sell a few pieces every week, but after the holidays, interest in the VR headset has drastically fallen. There have been weeks in which not a single Oculus Rift Demo has been requested by visitors of the shop and in order to increase performance and cut losses, Best Buy has resorted to closing down some of the testing stations.
International Business Times reports that in order to boost sales, Facebook may consider establishing its own store for sale of the VR Headset and offer free demonstrations of the product. This may be considered as a smart move from the purely financial or logistic side of things, but people go to game stores to buy games. Going to an Oculus Rift store is motivated only by the desire to buy this particular headset. In this way, the Rift will severely lower the chances of someone stumbling upon the headset by chance, like it would often happen in a game store or a similar establishment.
The price of the Oculus Rift, as seen on the official page is $599. As comparison, the Playstation VR Headset is set on $399 and the HTC Vive is $799. This places the Oculus Rift in a mid-price position, but steel a price too steep for the casual or even everyday player. Considering lowering the price of the product, or creating a cheaper version of it would certainly increase the chances of achieving successful sales. Oculus Rift is available through the big game suppliers and its own online store.
