A rumor has come up suggesting that Oculus Rift production may be suffering delays due to parts supply issues.
The rumor comes from a developer in Oculus VR itself. He claims that these parts are no longer being made, so they don’t have the materials to make more kits than they already have. As it is, the company has sold 50,000 Oculus Rift headsets to developers worldwide. As of right now, Oculus VR plans to keep selling the kits in key territories as much as possible, and then suspend sales. They are looking into replacement components, but cannot yet give a timeframe. Of course, this also means Valve’s predictions of consumer VR coming by 2015 might be delayed a little bit longer than expected.
While this was not indicated in the developer’s message, it is widely believed the parts in question were made for the mobile and smartphone industry, which, in hindsight, was a shortsighted approach. While using these parts meant they could lower cost, Oculus VR may not have taken into account that mobile devices upgrade and are iterated upon more rapidly than in other tech industries.
On developer believes the most likely candidate for missing part is the display. While the Oculus Rift uses a seven inch LCD, many tablets and smartphones have moved on to screens eight inches high and above.
Please remember that this is still a rumor and Oculus VR has yet to reply to the story. They have also not taken back announcements of a 2nd developer kit in the way, although it’s not unlikely that by the time the new kit is sold, it will already have newer parts inside, and Oculus’ supply solution behind it.
