Oculus VR has stopped selling its Oculus Rift virtual reality headset developer kit in China, after customers in the country started buying and reselling them at a higher price.
Customers are engaging in this practice, known as scalping, rather than checking out the capabilities of the headset or trying to add to the device, according to PC Magazine.
"Yes, it is a bummer that we've had to suspend sales in China due to extreme reseller purchases," an Oculus representative explained in a post on Reddit. "We need to make sure that we are doing what we can to make sure that resellers that are looking to flip our product for a profit are not taking stock away from legitimate developer purchases globally. Our product, in its current form, is a developer kit, meant for developers that develop VR content."
The representative stated the virtual reality company is searching for different ways to ensure that only legitimate developers are getting developer kits, Gamespot reported. He also urged those interesting in trying the headset to wait for the consumer version to be released, adding that while there is no timeline to solve the issue, it remains a top priority for the company.
Oculus indicated a few days ago 45,000 pre-orders have been placed for its Development Kit 2 (DK2) version of the headset, according to PC Magazine. The company has already sold 60,000 units of its Developer Kit 1 version of the device. High demand for the headsets have reportedly cause shipping delays - only 10,000 pre-orders for DK2 will be shipped by the end of July, while the rest will be sent in the following weeks.
The Oculus representative pointed out the company didn't cancel all orders in China since it is looking for "alternative sales processes" to figure out how to provide developers with the headsets.
Oculus did not mention how many customers are reselling the headsets, or how much the scalping was affecting others' ability to pre-order the devices, PC Magazine reported.
"We were forced to suspend an entire country from purchasing," the representative wrote. "I'll let you put 2 and 2 together."
