Oculus Quest 2 won’t launch until October 13th, but the headset is already backordered in Canada by a month and by three weeks in the US. Most regions are set to ship the headset within its first week or release but that’s likely to change as launch day approaches.
Updated – September 21st, 2020
Last week Facebook announced Oculus Quest 2 and immediately opened pre-orders ahead of the headset’s October 13th release date. The original Quest is no longer being sold by Oculus.
We checked stock availability for direct purchases from Oculus.com for Quest 2 (64GB), Quest 2 (256GB), and Rift S across all regions where the headsets are sold. The latest shows that Quest 2 is already significantly backordered in North America.
Canada is showing a backorder log of 29 days from the headset’s release date. The United States has the next longest backorder log at three weeks. Most other regions are still expecting to ship within one week of release, though a handful have already crept past beyond one week and we expect to see backorders queues continue to grow as launch day nears.
Rift S, meanwhile, is available to ship within a week in most regions. Although it only recently caught up with demand after disruptions from the Coronavirus pandemic, demand for the headset will likely be winding down given that Facebook has announced plans to discontinue Rift S early next year.
See chart for: 7/15/20 | 7/3/20 | 6/3/20| 5/19/20 | 5/15/20 | 5/13/20 | 5/8/20 | 5/5/20 | 5/4/20 | 5/1/20 | 4/30/20 | 4/29/20 | 4/28/20
Beyond backorders, the two standouts on the chart are Germany and South Korea, both of which are showing a complete lack of availability across all Quest 2 and Rift S headsets. The reason is likely related to regulatory issues in those countries regarding the recent announcement that Oculus headsets will require the use of a Facebook account.
Despite backorders creeping in for purchases direct from Oculus, stock at third-party retailers in Canada and the US appears to be holding steady. For instance, Amazon is still promising shipments of Quest 2 on launch day.
Though Quest is being discontinued in favor of Quest 2, Facebook says its former headset was more successful than it initially anticipated. Despite major supply disruptions from the Coronavirus pandemic in early 2020, the company tells Road to VR that it sold all of the Quest units that it had expected to sell over the course of the product’s life.
The company’s sales forecast is even higher for Quest 2; Facebook tells us it’s making “many more” units than the original Quest.
