They hoped to ”sell a few hundred” when their Kickstarter campaign began, but instead they were ”blown away by the overwhelming response” from nearly 10,000 backers.
The team bemoan that it’s ”no small feat” to design, source and make ”thousands of developer kits”. They’ve been working flatout to manufacture and distribute 7,500 ”in just 4 short, crazy months.”
In order to cope with the huge volume of demand the Oculus team needed to redesign the headset so it was more suitable to mass production. ”When we launched our Kickstarter campaign in August, we hoped to sell a few hundred kits to game developers and virtual reality enthusiasts around the world,” said Oculus Rift creator Palmer Lucky via Kickstarter. “Instead, we were blown away by the overwhelming response from a community of almost 10,000 backers.”
“Designing, sourcing, and manufacturing thousands of developer kits is no small feat.”
”Since our Kickstarter, we’ve been up against the wall, working around the clock to produce and distribute over 7,500 units in just 4 short, crazy months. We’ve had to modify our original design for mass-manufacturing and, at the same time, balance additional features with our tight schedule.” Now the new design is ready it will take time to build them.
“All together, preparing the factory for mass production of a product like the Rift takes approximately 90 days.”
The Oculus Rift team go into length on the new design in their latest Kickstarter update blog. The project secured $2,437,429 in pledges from 9,522 backers when the Oculus team asked for just $250,000. 7 people paid $5,000.
