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So this might be what's wrong with the Rift's production

Chassit
Heroic Explorer
Okay. So we have been waiting for a couple of weeks in the dark. Now marks the start of the third week, so I thought fuck this. If Oculus doesn't want to say anything about the situation until yet another week later, I'll try to find out some clues from other channels.

Everything these days is made in China, right? Happens to be my turf. There's scarcely anything on the English web, but on the Chinese web information is surprisingly aplenty. Took me like 30 seconds to find out this company by the name of Goertek (http://www.goertek.com/) has been contracted by Oculus as its ODM (original design manufacturer).

Most of the stuff is useless, but there's a bit meat in this news article about Goertek's financial performance 2015:
http://money.163.com/16/0225/03/BGKUQK5900253B0H.html

To summarize the point:

1. Goertek is not only assembling Rifts, they are also supplying Oculus with optical and acoustic parts;
2. Oculus prepared a grand total of 4,000 units for the **GLOBAL** pre-order back in January, and it went out in less than 15 minutes;

I'm poking all over Chinese social media for any information from Goertek insiders. This doesn't look good. Oculus has been working on Rift since what? 2013? Fast forward 3 years, with what should have been ample preparation, on the biggest day of their life they've only cobbled together 4,000 units. Either Oculus the company is not very well organized, or VR stuff are damn hard to manufacturer, or Oculus is such a small client that Goertek doesn't even bother assigning it much work force.

The good news is Sony has also contracted Goertek as the ODM of PSVR. At the very least, if the making of head mounted displays is indeed so difficult, we will be seeing a ton of frustrated PS owners pretty soon.

Will keep you updated if I dig out anything else.
75 REPLIES 75

thhrash
Explorer
Wow, great finds on this stuff.  Keep it coming!

Zandil
Rising Star
Their forecast shows Vive to be in least demand. 

Lionreza
Explorer

Zandil said:

With Oculus partnership on the Gear VR I thought manufacturing would have been in partnership with Samsung. 


Samsung will contract there manufacturing out just like every one else

Zandil
Rising Star

The total Oculus Rift package includes a headset, sensor set, remote, cable, Xbox
One controller and games (EVE and Lucky’s Tale). Among those, GoerTek supplies the
headset, sensor and Oculus Remote. We also expect GoerTek will do Oculus Touch in
the latter part of this year. 

NEO_RACER
Honored Guest
If so, how could they be so fucking stupid. Well looks like most of us might not even get a Rift this YEAR....

Chassit
Heroic Explorer
Wait a second. Since HTC is using the same ODM, this could very well be the reason why European Vivers are dealing with the same shit as we are. Anyone care to repost this to the Vive forum? Pitchfork time! And there's a PSVR bomb ready to go off any time. How can they use the same manufacturer? I wouldn't even share the same laundry machine with my rivals.

I'll be laughing my ass off if I were the Goertek's president. "Loo mom! I just screwed the world!"

Zandil
Rising Star
Is Goertek actually manufacturing Vive ?
Big report I may have missed something ?

. GoerTek is well
positioned, in our view, as the major EMS for Oculus Rift, Sony PSVR and
LeVR.

Chassit
Heroic Explorer
@zandil Yeah you are right. Double checked and I misread it.

omtron
Protege
Holy molly! Good find! Estimated shipments of Oculus Rift for 2016 is 1.1million with 300,000 preorders! "First batch sold in 14 minutes." I wonder how big the first batch was.. Also I wonder why they wouldn't make enough headsets to meet demand for at least the first batch on launch day.

Zandil
Rising Star

omtron said:

 Also I wonder why they wouldn't make enough headsets to meet demand for at least the first batch on launch day.


That report is the Chinese manufacture forecasts, Oculus and Facebook would have their own and clearly Oculus underestimated the pre-order demand. 
While that's bad for us consumers, it's kind of a pretty nice surprise for Oculus.