For the past two weeks—since January 25th, 2020, when there were only 1,438 cases—I have been trying to balance my coverage of “social VR, virtual worlds, and metaverse” (as the tagline of my blog states) with coverage of the rapidly-evolving global health crisis that is the Wuhan coronavirus (more formally known as 2019-nCoV, at least until the authorities give it a proper name or acronym).
There have been many reports in the mainstream news media that the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak in China will negatively impact the manufacture and delivery of everything from pharmaceutical ingredients to automotive parts. Yesterday, the Road to VR website published a news report that illustrates the growing impact that the 2019-nCoV situation is having on the manufacture of VR technology. (Yes, this story is about both virtual reality and the coronavirus. It was bound to happen eventually!)
Titled Facebook Expects Coronavirus Will Have “Additional Impact” on Oculus Quest Availability, the article says:
After being back-ordered by weeks in many regions, Oculus Quest is now “unavailable” from Oculus in 17 out of 23 regions where the unit is sold, including the United States, Canada, and much of Europe. Facebook says the Coronavirus outbreak is to blame.
Responding to a Road to VR inquiry about Oculus Quest becoming “unavailable” in many regions, a Facebook spokesperson shared the following statement:
“Oculus Quest has been selling out in some regions due to high demand. That said, like other companies we’re expecting some additional impact to our hardware production due to the Coronavirus. We’re taking precautions to ensure the safety of our employees, manufacturing partners and customers, and are monitoring the situation closely.”
At the time of writing, the Oculus Quest is now unavailable in the following 17 regions: Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States.
Facebook gave no indication of when it expects the Oculus Quest to be once again available. Given the severe impact that the coronavirus is having on China’s economy, it seems unlikely that we will see any new stock of Oculus Quest VR headsets available anytime soon. How this might impact other Facebook plans for 2020—including the impending beta launch of their social VR platform, Horizon—remains to be seen. (But you can expect resellers on eBay and other places to take advantage of the situation and start selling Oculus Quests at a premium to those people still eager to get their hands on one.)
I think it’s time for a bit of perspective. The latest number of deaths from coronavirus – 722. The number of deaths from boring old influenza in the U.S. ALONE, so far this flu season – about 10,000. Influenza kills about 650,000 worldwide every year. It affects everyone but the poor, the sick and the elderly are more likely to die from it. I suspect coronavirus will be the same.