Oculus recently opened a referral program that lets U.S. residents generate discount codes for friends, family, or anybody in else that wants to buy a Rift or Go at 10% off. That program proved to be extremely popular, at least for Rift, as the company had to put a temporary hold on Rift referrals due to high demand over the past few days. If you experienced an issue lately sending Rift referrals, Oculus says you can start sending again.

When users tried to generate referral codes for Rift + Touch up until yesterday, they were greeted with this message:

“Your referral couldn’t be sent at this time because we are currently out of referral codes. Please try again later.”

We reached out to the company to understand more, and an Oculus spokesperson said this to Road to VR:

“Due to high demand, we temporarily paused the referral program as our systems caught up. As of today Rift owners can now resume sending referral codes. The original limit of 3 codes per person is still in effect.”

SEE ALSO
Oculus Launches Referral Program, Free Store Credit When a Friend Buys Rift or Go

The stoppage was likely due to high demand experienced over the Black Friday & Cyber Monday period which saw Rift go as low as $350 when purchased from Oculus and its retail partners.

With a referral link, that knocked another 10% off the price, bringing it to an all-time low of $315. Rift + Touch is regularly priced at $400, making the deal an obvious target for bargain hunters and their Oculus device pals which saw an Oculus Store credit kickback between $20 – $30 for every Rift/Go referral.

At this time, referrals can only be generated by U.S. based users who have already bought either a Rift or Go. The resultant discount code can be redeemed by anyone living in the company’s 22 supported countries however.

Thanks to Antony Vitillo for tipping us off to the news via his VR/AR publication Skarred Ghost.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 3,500 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.

  • That’s a great news! I think referrals are a good way to incentivize people in spreading virtual reality

  • JustNiz

    It’s great that there’s so much demand for PC-based VR, but buying a Rift now is crazy as there are so many better headsets out there these days.

    • Vegeta785

      Like what?

      • JustNiz

        Vive, Vive Pro, Samsung Odyssey, Pimax 8K, Pimax 5K+, StarVR One, Valve headset coming… probably others… google is your friend.

        • Proof XR Lab

          Pimax aren’t available at retail, still lots of backers waiting for their kickstarter Pimax headsets going into 2019.

          Valve headset has no release date nor pricing, its subject to Valve time™️

          StarVROne is not for retail consumers, technically you can purchase a headset only dev kit, but its not plug and play solution.

        • Justos

          The original vive showed its age 6 months after release. I would not recommend it.

          Vive PRO is just a more polished vive with a high price tag, better, but not worth it for $/performance/specs

          Pimax have yet to prove anything, people looking for the best VR platform should not invest in them unless they have 2-3000$ burning a hole in their pocket.

          StarVR as a company is in trouble.

          Oculus have the best platform, the best value, and customer support. They are ALL-IN on VR, where nobody else is.

          • JustNiz

            Wrong. The Vive is better than the Rift in many ways, including better tracking system, wider FOV, less god rays, more compatible with open standards, and not locked into a walled-garden store.

            Whether the Vive Pro is worth the extra or not is subjective, so you cannot make the claim that it isn’t. It’s image quality is undeniably better than the Rift though.

            Pimax are already shipping headsets to backers, and taking preorders for general sale. your $2-3000 claim is fact-free. The 5K+ is $699.

            Oculus have the worst platform, it is locked-in and full of spyware, and the Rift is a 2 year old first-gen headset. You need to stop being an oculus fanboi and look at the facts.

          • Justos

            You’re the one that speaks like a fanboy, ignoring facts and spouting garbage that finally died down years ago. Vive troll detected.

            The original vive is overpriced, front heavy, blurrier than a rift, and comes with no software and the worst customer support you can imagine. The controllers are hot garbage, but cost a ridiculous amount for a single one. The reason nobody today should ever consider buying one. Open standards are great, but when the only headset that runs flawlessly on it is their own, how open is that really?

          • JustNiz

            Overpriced is subjective so a retarded discussion point. Yes Vive is *slightly* heavier. Mine came with software, so your software point is wrong. plus there’s plenty of free VR software on Steam. The controllers are fine. Yes buying more controllers is expensive but who cares, you get them with the headset so you don’t need to buy them separately, like you have/had to with the Rift. Tracking accuracy may be identical but Oculus max roomscale size is much smaller, plus you’ve got a mess of USB cables everywhere. As regarding which headsets run flawlessly with SteamVR/OpenVR, they all do, including the Rift. I agree the Vive is now outdated but less so than the Rift, as buying a Vive now would get you lighthouses and controllers that you can use going forward with other newer headsets even from other manufacturers, such as Pimax and StarVR. Oculus have already announced that the Rift constellation system is dead and not going forward, meaning even for the next Oculus headset, you will still have to also buy more trackers and controllers.

        • Morey Ladini

          Nonsense. It terms of integrated gear, price and performance, Rift is still “it.”

          • JustNiz

            Bwahahaha. The only way the Rift competes is price, but you can buy a house brick for $1.

  • airball

    Lol, I’m sure Facebook, one of the largest tech companies on the planet, with resources to identify billions of human faces in near real time, needed time for its ‘systems to catch up’ with a referral code program. The system was down, and this is called PR.

  • sfmike

    It’s great to see there is an ongoing demand. To bad the Oculus Quest is not ready for this holiday season as I think this will be a game changer in adoption for the general public.

    • Steve

      I couldn’t agree more regarding Quest.

  • This was such a no-brainer, I’m glad Carmack took heed when I suggested they do exactly this more than one year ago ;)
    https://twitter.com/NiclasJ/status/918561098697265152
    I’m sure this will help push Go and especially Quest when it’s released. Please roll out the program world-wide!