Oculus finally clears backlog of Rift pre-orders, four months later

If you didn't jump on the VR bandwagon the very second Oculus announced the availability of its $599 (499) Rift headset back in January, you may have ended up waiting months for your ticket to the virtual world. Now, Oculus says that waiting is over, and the company has cleared out the backlog of pre-orders over the last few months. New Oculus Rift orders are expected to ship within two to four business days, according to an announcement blog post.

The ability to keep up with demand has been a long time coming for Oculus, which faced an "unexpected component shortage" that delayed many early shipments shortly after the official March launch. The company offered free shipping to pre-orderers to make up for the early problems.

The $799 (689) HTC Vive, which started shipping in April, saw backorders pushed back to June shipment but is now available for immediate shipping from HTC's website. It's hard to directly compare demand for the two units, though, without solid knowledge of how many units both headset makers were able to supply.

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