Apparently Black Friday and Cyber Monday have been good to Facebook this year, as Oculus Go has jumped far up the video games best sellers list on Amazon, beating out notable entries such as Nintendo Switch, Oculus Rift S, and Oculus Quest.

Undoubtedly the consumer friendly pricing has attracted plenty of Amazon users for this year’s biggest sale in preparation for the holiday season, as the 32GB version is currently just $150, and the 64GB version at $200. You can find the 32GB version here on Amazon, and the 64GB version here.

At the time of this writing, Oculus Go is sitting at third place, which is just above Nintendo Switch with Gray Joycons; at 33rd place is Oculus Rift S, and at 43rd place is Oculus Quest. Sitting at first and second are vouchers for PlayStation Store credit and PS Plus, which ought to make for easy stocking stuffers.

First introduced in May 2018, Oculus Go brought to the table an experience very similar to Samsung Gear VR, albeit without the need of smartphone to drive its graphics.

Oculus Go & Gear VR, Photo by Road to VR

As an ‘all-in-one’ VR headset with headset tracking only (unlike Oculus Quests’ room-scale tracking) Facebook mostly couches it as a media consumption device with the added ability to play a library of games designed specifically for the single controller and its modest mobile chipset, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 821.

SEE ALSO
Oculus Cyber Monday Sale Brings Big Savings to Rift & Quest Game Bundles

Although you can’t play more graphically intensive games, or games that require room-scale tracking and two controllers like Beat Saber (2018) or Job Simulator (2016), the ability to watch streaming services in your own private movie theater such as Netflix, YouTube, Plex, Hulu, and Showtime, has been a pretty substantial draw.

Development for Go has admittedly slowed down somewhat since the hypetrain left the station for the $400 Oculus Quest, but it should have casual users looking for a cheap and portable VR solution consuming media, playing light games, and even popping into social VR spaces for some time yet to come.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • Jimmy Ray

    Just hope they where not thinking it was the Quest.

    • NooYawker

      I guarantee lot’s of people are buying the Go thinking it’s the same as the VR sets they see on youtube.

    • J.C.

      Yeah, I have a feeling a lot of people asked for an Oculus Quest for Christmas, and the gift giver saw oculus Go and didn’t differentiate. It’ll be disappointing, but parents/relatives have been buying the wrong electronic gifts for decades.

  • Guest

    Other than being cheap, I do not understand what
    good is a Go nowadays. 3-DOF was some tech-ignorant financial dude’s desperate attempt to forcifully tap into the main stream market with little regard for what VR really is capable of. 3-DOF’s impression is as best as “gimmicky” and has no true traction once the novelty fades away. Now with both Google and Oculus both abandoning 3-DOF, Go should be killed immediately before it further confuses customers.

    Not to mention Go apps work on Quest, too.

    • Lynx09

      It’s cheap, it’s comfortable, it’s great at consuming media and it has pretty decent selection of games like Gunjack, Ashnar and Elevator to the Moon. If you’re not a huge gamer, the Go is probably a better option given the price and comfort. You can watch a movie on a tv bigger than you’re room in bed. The Quest becomes less comfortable over time given it is front heavy. Some things come at a cost and people want different things.

      • Immersive Computing

        It definitely does a good job for media consumption and experiences. GO is still widely used at VR festivals as it’s easy to use and inexpensive in quantity.

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ddbbddb51e1a25bec9283c4514903a240fdca6abca4249e28d4f142e2e0fff7f.jpg

      • Ad

        That’s almost certainly not true, if it was then the Go would have been popular last year, why is it suddenly at number 1? And these games are nothing compared to the Quest. You don’t have to be a huge gamer to play Beat Saber. Yes some people like Netflix and nothing else but those people likely also want to multitask, which they can’t do with these viewfinders. My sister was the perfect target audience, got one for free, and stopped using it after a week.

        • aasdfa

          ITS NOT ABOUT GAMING!!!! jesus fucking christ how many times do people need to say this?

          Like lynx said “if youre not a huge gamer, the go is probably a better option..” and you reply with “aNd ThEsE GaMeS aRe NoThInG CoMpAreD To ThE QuEsT.”

          No shit you dunce captain, they were never going to be and never sold as a gaming unit. Its a media tool and a great one at that.

          You cant assume what your sister does is what everyone does.

          For the price of under 200$, the go has the ability to be a gift to a lot more people than the $400 quest can be from price alone.

          Just please try to turn your brain on next time and not just assume that what you like is what everyone must like.

          • Ad

            “and it has pretty decent selection of games like Gunjack, Ashnar and Elevator to the Moon.”

            The Go is a much weaker device for almost any kind of media anyway. Yes it is cheaper and it suits a very limited use case, but it’s a legitimate concern that many don’t know what they’re getting into, especially with the current wave of interest being tied to the Quest and Alyx. Go had its time and completely failed to gain traction.

            Also:
            “Yes some people like Netflix and nothing else but those people likely also want to multitask, which they can’t do with these viewfinders.”

            This is a frequently cited line of reasoning by VR critics.

          • lynx

            Are you asserting those aren’t good games? What about Thumper or Daedalus?
            Games and other applications are also still being released on the Go.

            Given that the Go beat out the Quest does mean that it has gained traction. It maybe that Amazon set the price to $120 making it a giftable item rather than an item you would only buy for yourself. At the end of the day, it now has a larger user base.

            If your asserting that people bought the Go thinking it was the Quest so they can play Alyx then they would have had to already known that the Quest supports PCVR. Why wouldn’t they know what the Quest looks like?

            As for multitasking, you can also watch Netflix on the Quest.
            Why aren’t you whining that there is something on your face then? You also cannot watch VR180 videos nor 3d movies on a laptop. Some people are restricted to their location and may want to see the grand canyon as if they were actually there.

    • MW

      It’s so simple – people (customers) are ignorant. Not because their are stupid but because life is too complicated in this days. Most of smartphone buyers has no idea what processor, cores or ram really mean or do (just like 99% of voters has no idea what this guy is planning to do:)). If it’s their beloved, trustworthy company (and pretty and shining) it’s their choice. Look at the ridiculous Apple prices and policy-and they still selling. That is like mass consumption of tech looks like. VR is VR. Headset looks the same. Maybe gray is prettier than black:)

    • Till Eulenspiegel

      If a person wants a headset just to enjoy VR porn, Oculus GO is the best option right now. Wireless, light and comfortable with a media-based controller. Not to mention, the screen has less SDE for watching video.

      • NooYawker

        This about sums it up. People who want to watch VR porn, this is the best option. Or if you want to play mobile games in VR for some reason. But porn is what its’ really good for.

    • asshat

      no the go is great for its cheap price… what the hell is wring with you?

      if its not the absolute best ten it should die!!!!!

      No the go is great for media consumption, like it always has been directed for. the gaming was just a side thing and everyone knew it was inherently not a gaming platform.

      for the price and for kids even its a great device for watching movies and other media types.

      Get your head out of your ass and stop assuming that just because you dont want it that everyone must hate it. Clearly everyone does not hate it like you and youre the idiot here.

    • Jeremy Deats

      “Other than being cheap”. Your assumption is that anyone not being cheap would see great value in full Roomscale experiences that would make them want to part with $400 instead of $200… With due respect, that’s a very narrow minded perspective. At $200 the Go is perfect for media consumption, there is a huge consumer demographic that would ONLY use VR as a Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Prime, Hulu streaming device or to view 360 photos and videos. It’s an incredible value at $200 just for that function. The Go’s LCD screen is better at subpixel rendering than the Quest’s LED screens. The Go’s LCD screen is also lower persistence, which makes it easier on the eyes for spending long periods of time watching media. But regarding use cases: You have retirement homes buying them in bulk. Enterprises like Walmart placing orders for over 17,000 Go units. The Go’s utility a perfect match for their use case and a cost savings over the same Quest bulk purchase over $3.4 million dollars! Public Schools, libraries, Realtors, the list goes on… all using the Go for business type applications. Many of them not desiring Roomscale. Think about it, if you have an entire classroom of students who all need to be in VR at the same time, you have space limitations. My point here is that you are greatly undervaluing the doors that the $199 price point opens and the utility a 3dof device can bring to so many non-game VR experiences. Until we can get a 6dof all-in-one down to the $199 price point, there will be a market for the Go.

  • Ryan McClelland

    I’m surprised the Rift S is ahead of the Quest. Availability issues or consumer confusion?

    • cartweet

      Availability. 64GB Quest became backordered a day or so ago. Rift S just recently became backordered. They’ll both start dropping rapidly in the charts until restock. I suspect 128GB will also be out of stock soon as it gets swallowed up by any remaining customers.

    • Ad

      No Black Friday sale maybe. Also Alyx interested users are less interested in the quest then I expected.

    • namekuseijin

      perhaps they need more comfort

    • 2Na

      Simple: $350 vs $400. *AND* consumer confusion/apathy when it comes to what you buy other people for Xmas gifts. If Amazon or Newegg put the S, Quest, and Odyssey+ side by side on a VR banner ad suggestion together, the Samsung would probably have outsold all, despite WMR headsets enjoying less prestige and polish. I wouldn’t use one, but money talks.

  • Ad

    This is a disaster! You know they shut down Rooms, right? These devices were a scourge for VR and if they’re suddenly popular it can’t be for a good reason. I really hope people aren’t buying these thinking they can play actual games.

  • Francesco Fazio

    Well guys that’s the clear demonstration that the vast majority of the people in the world is just nothing but a pathetic idiot

    • DJ SUTRA

      heavily agreed upon.

  • Mateusz Pawluczuk

    I still use my Go despite having Quest.
    It’s lighter. More compact. Has way cheaper content. Games for $1. Amaze now offers an 83% discount so I can watch Great C etc for cheap. There’s a backlog of Games on Go that I want to play – Paper Valley etc. On Quest I play Pistol Whip and free Sideloaded stuff.

    Also Quest only plays some Go apps – most of my fav’s are not listed.

    • namekuseijin

      crappy shovelware are $1

      • aasdfa

        so a game has to cost a certain amount to be good….no thanks

        • namekuseijin

          no, they’re $1 because they’re crappy, not the other way around

    • ET3D

      Same here. Finally got a chance to watch The Great C. Quite enjoyed it. I find the Go a lot more immediate and haven’t yet found a Quest game I really enjoy to an extent that makes me want to use it over the Go. (Then again, my Quest library is much smaller, due to the cost.)

  • Mike Porter

    I really, really doubt Go is outselling Switch. Switch has sold over 37 million units!

    Could simply mean where a product is in the Amazon list doesn’t mean how well or how much it is selling but rather the list is manually updated and curated.

    • callen

      So you “doubt” it, therefore the author is “naive” and you shouldn’t take the site seriously? Quite presumptuous, no? Did you even bother to investigate whether your claims of a “manually updated or curated” list have any merit? Of course not, because a *very* quick search brought me to an Amazon support page which says

      “As with the main Amazon Best Sellers list, these category rankings are based on Amazon.com sales and are updated hourly.”

      So not manually ranked at all, they are ranked automatically, always updating. Now you are right to say that Switch is selling like hotcakes! At the moment I write this, the rankings have flipped – the Switch is in 11th place, while the Go has dropped to #16 – but even if the author looked at the site at a single moment when Go was on top, the fact that it’s keeping pace at all with Switch is very impressive! No other system breaks the top 50, but PSVR is sitting pretty at #36.

      • Mike Porter

        You only read things literally I see. By “I really doubt” here I’m making an understatement to prove a point without being too agressive. You should try these sometimes, figures of speech.

        “because a *very* quick search brought me to an Amazon support page which says”

        And you are very naive yourself to believe what a support page of Amazon claims to be true. These companies, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google lie contantly to the governments, the people and you and have been caught lying numerous times, yet you still believe their support pages. Yeah, okay, but that’s you’re choice only.

        The facts we know are Switch has sold 37 million units in less than 2 years while Go has sold only 2 million units in 1+ years. Explain to me how it can “beat” Switch in sales longer than a second. And if it was in fact for a very short time, then who bloody cares then besides fanboys?

        • callen

          lol, first off, the article doesn’t try to make any claims about sales in the long term, just on black friday. second, you aren’t even consistent within your own rebuttal. you assert that a support page on amazon can’t be trusted, because of some blanket assertion that tech coms have lied before – which would make a great class-action lawsuit for amazon 3rd party sellers if it was a lie, as they rely heavily on these rankings for sales. but then, you immediately turn around and start spouting off sales numbers of 37 million versus 2 million… who is the source for these numbers? omg its these lying companies themselves!

          big tech has lots of issues to be sure, but attacking a vr journo for accurately reporting, “at the time of this writing”, the surprising success of a major vr headset? what on earth does this have to do with the techno-dystopian future FAANG companies are building for us?

          finally, there are lots of articles posted here daily, if you truly don’t care, then you wouldn’t be trolling in the comments.

          • Mike Porter

            The only troll here is you. You’re insane if you consider Nintendo in the same category as Facebook when it comes to honesty to consumers and the government. I sure as hell don’t, so you’re making a straw man here.

            Secondly, you expres naivety yet again by claiming anyone could find evidence against Amazon for a lawsuit when the information is nearly impossible to access without raiding their offices.
            Thirdly, nobody is attacking “journos”, I’m simply stating my disappointment. You’re not a white knight and there’s no damsel-in-distress here, get a life.

          • callen

            Not “white knighting” whatever you mean by that, I’m simply accusing you of attacking an article (and calling its author “naive”) on the basis of some insane conspiracy theory that you literally invented whole-cloth in your head. While also saying the article is stupid and no one cares, while you try to start a flame war in the comments of this thing you don’t care about. There’s no damsel-in-distress or straw man (lol at your euphemisms btw), just an idiot who can’t admit he’s making stuff up for no apparent reason. Is it because you hate facebook? Are you a rabid nintendo fanboy? (if so, stop making us look bad) Do you honestly believe that the thousands upon thousands of people who built a livelihood on amazon (and on making “how to hack amazon seo” websites and courses) aren’t spending a collective millions of hours of research reverse-engineering the site’s algorithms?

            You want a straw man, how about the idea of some Facebook-Amazonian Cabal that requires an FBI raid to be uncovered. But whatever, healthy skepticism in 20xx requires a bit of entertaining conspiracy theories. I believe that facebook simply wants people’s eyes pointed at their product 24/7, Amazon wants to sell you everything from your refrigerator to the food inside it, and Apple wants to overcharge you for silicon chips. I believe the only patently evil company is the one with the express goal of “organizing the world’s information”, but you’re free to believe what you want. I just don’t see how denying the Go outsold the Switch for an hour or 2 during black friday does anything useful.

      • NooYawker

        If the GO sold anywhere close to 37 million FB would be harping about it nonstop.

  • JakeDunnegan

    It’s mentioned in another article here, but Go went down as low as $120 at one point. (Lightning deal on Amazon). Undoubtedly that impacted the sales, and, given that people have a lot of pressure to scoop those timed deals up (15 minutes once it’s in your card), I would not be surprised if people got confused with the Oculus Quest.

    I know in my own case, I did research for quite some time before I was able to identify the differences between the Go and the Quest. (They really should make the different controllers, and what they do, a bit more obvious in their sales pitches…)

  • I wasn’t expecting that. I envsioned the Quest selling more than Go, selling more than Rift S. Instead it has not been like this… for sure the fact that Go and Rift S have been discounted, has helped a lot

    • Adrian Meredith

      The quest probably is selling more its just spread between the two different skus

    • JesperL

      Quest is sold out many places – so parents just buy another to make sure their kids get VR for christmas.

    • Ardra Diva

      $499 is still too much for the Quest, or I would have bought one.

  • Tharny

    Just dont hope many of those that bought it belive they bought an “Oculus” beliving it is the Rift S or Quest.

  • JesperL

    LOL – The VR media hype benefits GO…
    Its simple. Tons of kids wish for VR for Christmas.
    Parents are clueless, and see a cheap solution.
    A lot of upcoming GO owners, will be very dissapointed.

  • Happy for a Guest Option

    I think the Go does still have a market simply because Oculus is pretending the Quest doesn’t have a comfort issue and reviewers and those hyping the Quest are playing along. That leaves the Go as a very viable media device.

    The Go also has no cameras or tracking that crashes, making it a better media device for those who simply want to do that, and who for various reasons, prefer absolute privacy with their media, lol.

    I agree there is certainly room for confusion, but that existed even before the Quest was an option. I read many discussions involving parents and grandparents buying Go’s for kids and relatives who almost certainly had been wanting a Rift (CV1) instead.

    If journalists and reviewers would be honest about these products there would not be nearly the confusion. For example the Quest is being sold as if it is a PCVR replacement as opposed to simply an alternative for those who do not or cannot have a gaming PC. There is very little effort to educate consumers so that they buy the device that is best for them. In the process of hyping products to ignorant consumers consumers are left ignorant. Perhaps most buy the hyped product, in this case a Quest, but many only see a cheaper price on a different Oculus and snag it in eager anticipation of giving a loved one the best Christmas Gift ever….only to be asked if they have a gift receipt for it…..

  • Ardra Diva

    I wonder how many will return it when they realize it’s not the Quest.