With the pre-orders filling up quickly for both the Oculus Quest and Oculus Rift S, and with the shipping date already pushed back three days for those who haven’t ordered yet, the buzz around these two headsets are only growing. For as many people that are buying the headsets, there is a great number of people that want to try the headsets on their head before they spend the money. For the ladder group of people, they are in luck. Best Buy will be taking care of the Quest demos, and Microsoft will be taking care of the Rift S.
The demos will solely start in the United States, but will surely branch out to other countries in the near future, much like the original Rift.
It has been quiet some time before we saw a full demo of multiple Rift headsets hit retail stores, and they don’t seem to be going away anytime soon. In this case, we will see companies try to push the headset off of shelves and into customer hands by saying that the demos will be “limited.” This has not been the case for Oculus, as these demos are set to be going for a while. We can expect them to stay for a least a few months.
The new Oculus headsets are clearly in high demand as they have nearly sold out in just over two days on the market. That means even more people will be flooding in these stores to not only buy the headsets, but to see what all of the hype is about. This is a fantastic marketing campaign to push more headsets, which is clearly the goal.
The quality of the product and the price of the product didn’t match up too well when it came to the Oculus RIft, and Facebook knew that while making the Rift S. Unless they had a huge numbers of buyers for the Rift, it was hard to make a profit. With the Rift S, we can see where they “improved” (not really improved their products materials, but kept them at a cheaper buying price while maintaining great performance) the product for the profits sake. This means that they will have to sell less Rift S to make larger amounts of profit, which is amazing especially because of the lower selling price of their headset.
With all of that being said, the objective is to make more money for the company while still putting a product out that is lauded by the virtual reality community. With putting demos out on shelves, this will be helping their cause for months to come.
Rift S (Microsoft Stores)
The Rift is a PC ran virtual reality headset. Because Rift S can and will be running Windows, Microsoft Stores will be selling the Rift S and not the Oculus Quest. The demos will start up on the official release date, May 21st, and will be running for a “limited time.” The “limited time” stamp is only applying to certain locations, so make sure you are testing and buying before your local Microsoft Store stops demoing.
When the demo goes live on the 21st, you will be able to check which stores will have it at live.oculus.com.
It is still unsure if you are going to have to schedule an appointment or you will be able to simply walk in and play some demo games. It is still not confirmed what games will be on the headset to demo, but we can guess that they will be downloaded beforehand, meaning that it will be known before the 21st which games are going to be on it.
Oculus Quest (Best Buy)
The standout standalone headset will be also have demos, this time provided by Best Buy across the United States. They will be ready on May 21st, the day the headset launches on the market. This headset should not be “limited” to demo at all, as it is expected to stay on the shelves as long as the headset does.
When the demos launch, you will be able to see which of your local Best Buy stores will have them by checking live.oculus.com.
The reason it should be inside the stores longer is pretty simple. It is a much easier headset to introduce you into virtual reality. This all-in-one headset is an easy setup to demo, and it not hard to use. Another great feature is the inside-tracking that allows you to operate with no external sensors or trackers.
Both of these headsets should not disappoint. Coming in at a price point of $399, you really cant go wrong with buying either of the headsets. Go test out for yourself and see what you think, as the developers over at Facebook and Oculus have worked hard for software inside of the new hardware that is sure to impress.
