Today I learned that Oculus VR has a product fulfillment process that can only be rivaled by a five year old with a traumatic brain injury.
Congratulations to you first-day order folks. You'll likely get your dev kit this month. I suspect it will be awesome. Enjoy the fruits of your Click-Fu. I'm happy for you. (Genuinely!)
The rest of us suckers? August. Maybe.
What is it about VR companies that treat the "whooshing" sound that a missed target date makes as just another sound effect?
And no, I'm not interested in excuses, rationalizations or the hissy fits borne of a million lobotomized fanboys in defense of their precious.
I should know by now that when a VR company states a ship date, the statement should be filed in the same folder as "The check is in the mail!" and "Of course I'll respect you in the morning!"
Technically, they'll meet their ship date assuming nothing happens. That does little to make the people that ordered after the first day feel any better about their $400+ purchase that has no firm delivery date.
I'm not mad, simply disappointed - mostly in myself for buying into the hype of the DK2 and assuming that they weren't going to run in circles with their foot in a bucket when it came time to deliver. (Although from what I've recently learned about the DK1 fulfillment process, they may start out with BOTH feet in buckets...)
If you're a developer then you'll already have experience of expected shipping dates for new hardware/software slipping and this will all seem very normal to you as far as dev kits/SDKs goes. If you're not a developer then this is what you can expect by ordering a pre-release development kit for consumer use.
I've been developing software for money since 1986. (Gawd, I'm SUCH a whooore. *laughs*)
When a date slips, it's due to one of two things - someone screwed up, or a drooling retard wielding an MBA spat out an unrealistic delivery timeline.
When I buy development tools, they have stock before they'll take my money. When I buy reference boards, they've got stock before they take my money. Even when making a pre-order, the stock is usually on-site and they're doing final line tests before shipping.
I strongly suspect that the injection molds weren't even final when they opened up the pre-order for the DK2 and that's simply irresponsible if true.
If it makes you feel any better, i ordered coffee this morning and it took 5 minutes to get to me when it should have taken only 2 minutes. Ruined my day :x .
Optomisim is in our DNA we eveloved it to stop us from giving up when looking for the next meal.
Unfortunatly as far as deleivery dates etc. are concerned it can backfire. Im sure Oculus wanted to deliver bang on time.. and from my reckoning arent too far off.
Ive been invoved in so many projects and very few are bang on time usualy because we are too optomistic.. but optomisim is why we even bother in the first place with these crazy ideas.
Ive been an early adopter long enough to live with the pain that surrounds getting the shiny new thing first. Its all part of the fun.
DK1 Order No: 574XX (US)
Status: Received
DK2 Order No: GP-1055XXX
Status: Received
CV1 Order No:6130000XXXXXXX
Status: Received
Oculus Go
Status: Received
I tend to agree. I'm sure the logistics of international shipping is a nightmare, but before they gave a timeline for anything they had already received millions in venture capital, and one would assume hired someone with experience with large scale manufacturing and shipping experience. If you say you're going to ship in July, then at the very least you would expect them to ship all of the first week preorders as part of the first batch, regardless of area or country.
But there was some manufacturing hiccups from the sound of things, and it is even possible that the factory they have contracted to do the physical assembly of the units was not expecting the volume of preorders and not only was not contracted to handle the volume, but in reality could very much have not even been outfitted with the capability of pushing out the volume of units necessary. So there you have a company in a country with a widely unregulated manufacturing base working under contract, which oculus can't break, scrambling to upgrade or expand their per diem output rate to match the demand of the preorders.
I mean I'm all fanboy and whatnot (also ordered by 9:30am on 19th, AND I'm a yank so I feel good about my odds of getting one near the 14th) but the realities of manufacture and distribution of physical products goes far beyond some promise made about shipping times. Problems occur, delays arise, and that ladies and gentleman, is the breaks.
But let's not go crapping on Oculus for things that might have been completely out of there control, if not then at least something that could have been avoided but would have required a psychic on staff. They care too, any delay hurts their credibility and opens them up wider for competitors so I'm sure they are doing everything they can for their own sakes, if not the communities.
DK2: Shipped
New Build completed
NOOB and not ashamed 🙂
There is also a reason they said not to buy it if you fear of misshipment dates and CV release. So meh? I did notice one thing.. most of the people crying fail are under 20post xD
"f15sim" wrote: Today I learned that Oculus VR has a product fulfillment process that can only be rivaled by a five year old with a traumatic brain injury.
When I ordered Oculus stated: "We expect to begin shipping the first batch of DK2s in July" - now it's *beginning* of July and the first batch is leaving China. So what's your point?
