Preorders of the Oculus Quest VR headset on Amazon briefly hit the #1 top seller in the Video Games category this week. No VR headset has hit this position on Amazon except for the PlayStation VR.
As of the time of this writing pre-orders for the standalone headset were hovering around the #10 spot in the category.
Amazon sales ranks are updated hourly. The ranking is based on sales volume, not revenue. Reddit user vanfanel1car keeps a log of these sales rankings, which show how the pre-order sales for the new Oculus headsets changed over time. This is how this data looked yesterday:
The Rift S PC VR headset peaked at #6, but quickly fell down after the initial wave. The requirement for a gaming PC means fewer people can buy this headset, as well as stronger competition such as the Valve Index.
Oculus Quest is the first consumer standalone headset with positionally tracked controllers. The Lenovo Mirage Solo headset has positional tracking, but the controller is 3DoF — essentially a laser pointer. The HTC Vive Focus Plus has positional controllers, but it’s double the price at $799 and is targeted at enterprise customers.
Quest is intended to bring the room scale PC VR experience to people who don’t own a gaming PC via a standalone form factor. An early prototype was first shown as “Project Santa Cruz” back in 2016, but it has taken three years to come to market. You can read our full review of the Quest here.
The Oculus website sold out of the first three days of shipments after just one day of pre-orders. Combined with the impressive Amazon sales rankings, it appears the demand for the Quest is high — likely thanks to the attractive $399 price point.
