Oculus VR recently updated its blog with news that the company's stock of the original Rift development kit is running out. The company has shut down sales in most regions, and is currently ramping down production and distribution of the original kit. Why? Because some of the hardware components are no longer being manufactured.
"We never expected to sell so many Rift development kits and the fact that we’re close to being sold out after 60,000 kits is nothing short of incredible — Thank you for your support! We’ll have more news on this soon, so stay tuned!"
Now that's a definite tease. The company may be gearing up to announce the next development kit at GDC next week or at E3 2014 in June. There's still no sign of a release date or price although Oculus VR founder Palmer Luckey said that Rift will be affordable for mostly anyone.
"You can't sell an expensive piece of hardware and expect tons of content to show up," he said in an interview. "We're not doing market research around what's the breaking point for people to buy a VR headset; we're just trying to sell it as cheap as we can while still existing as a company."
If Oculus sold 60,000 Rift development kits at $300 apiece, then the company has thus far reeled in around $18 million USD. Just months ago, the company also raised $75 million in Series B funding to finalize development of Rift and the ecosystem. Before that, Oculus raised $16 million in Series A and $2.4 million through its Kickstarter campaign.
The first-run development kit, which launched back in December 2012 as part of the Kickstarter project, predates the HD version and the most recent Crystal Cove model the company showcased at CES 2014 back in January.
