Today Oculus has announced plans to offer in-store demos at 48 Best Buy locations across the U.S. starting on May 7th.
Selling VR headsets is a particularly tough challenge because the only way to understand the experience of virtual reality is to see it for yourself.
Oculus plans to combat that hurdle by bringing in-store Rift demo stations to potential customers. The company says that on May 7th they’ll roll out such demo headsets in 48 Best Buy stores across the U.S. as part of The Intel Experience.
Apparently anticipating great demand, the company has launched ‘Oculus Live‘, a scheduling system to allow advanced Oculus Rift demo appointments up to a month ahead of time.
Experiences shown at the demos include Crytek’s The Climb, vignettes from Dreamdeck, and Farlands.
Oculus also says that folks who pre-ordered the Rift but manage to buy the headset at retail (with limited quantities available at “select” Best Buy stores starting May 7 and online from Microsoft and Amazon, starting May 6 at 9am PST) will be able to keep their pre-order benefits. The company says to go to your order status to let them know if you’ve purchased the headset at retail and they will cancel your pre-order while letting you keep your copy of EVE: Valkyrie, position in line for the Oculus Touch launch, and offers for Oculus Ready PCs.
