I pre-ordered from Amazon, Best Buy, and Oculus because I didn't want to be stuck with the company hit with a delay.
I spoke with a Best Buy manager a few weeks ago who told me it's standard procedure for their warehouses to receive stock over a month in advance of the release of a product. When he went to check to see if they had Oculus Touch stock yet, however, he was surprised that all the warehouses were empty. He told me to check back next week.
Fast forward to today. I check back again and it turns out the warehouses are still empty. I believe the warehouses checked were one in New Jersey and one or two in Virginia. According to the manager, Apple is the only company they work with that waits until the last minute to deliver stock. While the manager is still hopeful they'll have it available for in-store pickup on launch day, he finds it extremely odd that they still don't have stock in the warehouses two weeks away. It takes time to process and allocate to the different stores.
Meanwhile Amazon still has not given a firm delivery date, still stating that they need more information and will email with an update. Checking with customer support, Amazon claims it is still slated for a December 8th delivery date (with Prime shipping), but that date is just based off of the presumed launch date and not whether or not they have enough stock to allocate to their orders.
Two weeks away and neither Amazon nor Best Buy have received any product from Oculus and have not been able to start allocating product to stores or orders. Is this a cause for concern? Is it a sign that the third-party retailers will be fulfilling orders after Oculus has fulfilled theirs? Both Best Buy and Amazon still sound confident that they will deliver "on time", but there's nothing to currently back up those assurances.
Is there anyone who works at Best Buy who could give more info? I'd love to be able to pick it up in store on the 6th, but I'd hate to be hit with a delay because I stuck with them over the other options. Can someone from Oculus give a wink and a nudge as to which order is the best one to keep? For those keeping score...
Best Buy - December 6th (subject to delay, no stock in warehouse)
Amazon - December 8th (customer support is confident but order page still says pending more info)
Oculus - ??? Dec 6th-15th (also probably slowest shipping speed)
The Furious Angels
