Virtual reality may be taking its first baby steps into the consumer market, but already the demand for virtual reality devices is huge.
Even the PlayStation VR headset – a device that is only compatible with the PlayStation 4 and not PCs – is in ridiculous demand. The US and the UK have been receiving a few shipments of them to help meet demand better, but in Japan, the headset has been near impossible to get a hold of.
Japan has the largest demand for PSVR and is struggling to provide enough units for customers, and with the release of the popular VR-enabled survival horror game Resident Evil 7, demand for the headset is higher than ever before.
The way Japanese retailers are deciding who gets a PSVR and who doesn’t is through a raffle system. Many eager buyers line up outside of stockists in the early hours of the morning in the hopes of being able to buy the headset, but many go away disappointed, regardless of what position they had in the queue.
Each person is given a ticket with a random number on it, and if that number is drawn, then they’re eligible to buy the headset.
One of the reasons the headsets are being produced and released so slowly is because the OLED screens that the device use take longer to manufacture, meaning that they’re only getting trickled into the market at this time.
Hopefully, restocks will be coming to stores thick and fast in the near future, because VR is steadily growing in popularity as a consumer product.
