VR Shipping Woes Continue With The Vive

It looks like the Oculus Rift isn't the only VR headset having shipment issues. According to this article, people that pre-ordered the HTC Vive are still waiting to take delivery of their headsets too. Any of you guys have your Vive yet?

I’ve been on the VR hype train for years. When HTC opened up pre-orders for the Vive, I plunked down my credit card and started waiting. But the Vive’s launch has come and gone, and...I’m still waiting. When is my Vive gonna show up? I don’t really know, and it seems like I’m not alone.

I wonder what all those bandwagon jumpers who were upset with Oculus and went over to Valve/HTC (apparent paragons of consumerism...) will do now. Reddit was awash with them last week. Such delicious irony.

Honestly, new product launches are very challenging even when they are not effectively new technology. Both companies were probably pressured to set, and hit, unrealistic release dates in a bid to be first to market. Unfortunately it seems a portion of the customer base do not understand the difference between a pre-order and walking into a store and buying something. Pre-ordering is putting money, or intent to purchase, down before the product is ready. That's inherently a gamble.

Confirmation email on preorder at +12 minutes. Still no charge/ship.

Dunnlang said:

I wonder what all those bandwagon jumpers who were upset with Oculus and went over to Valve/HTC (apparent paragons of consumerism...) will do now. Reddit was awash with them last week. Such delicious irony.

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There were people solely switching due to shipping delays/issues? I doubt that. I'm sure it was the whole Facebook relationship leading to a more closed platform...

sk3tch said:

There were people solely switching due to shipping delays/issues? I doubt that. I'm sure it was the whole Facebook relationship leading to a more closed platform...

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There were people making proud proclamations of their Rift cancellations and switching to Vive last week on Reddit. These were active redditors in the OR subreddit.

I got a kick out of it last week and now I am really enjoying the irony.

I got the shipping notice last Friday, estimated to deliver yesterday, and it arrived a day early.
Still no word from Oculus...

I think its a case of htc sending out thousands of vives to people on priority listings, such as celebs, pointless journalists/reviewers, and youtubers, essentially skipping all the early true preorder'ers.
thats the only thing i can think of.

i had both preordered, but canceled the oculus because of their shenanigans. sure would hate to cancel the vive too.

I have not gotten my Oculus or my Vive yet. I did not ask for "special" journalist treatment.....as I wanted to see wtf really went on with the delivery.

I got my order in :04 minutes after they opened. My credit card has had a hold placed on it, but no charge yet and no tracking info.
I get that it's a preorder and that they can't ship them all at once, but Shen Ye (of HTC) said on twitter, "Woah, more than 15k units in less than 10min."

So he's impressed. Maybe there's more demand than HTC thought when HTC said that they "Had no such worries" of a pre-order shortage.
But I don't think it's unreasonable if (like me) you ordered in the first 10 minutes that you would have thought that you'd have your pre-order fulfilled within two days of launch.

But now it's the 9th and I still have no idea when I'll get it. HTC has doubled down and said, "Vive order fulfillment is on track without delays, so you don’t need to do a thing. Pre-orders began shipping on April 5th, as originally communicated."
That statement is a slap in the face to early pre-order fans and gives no real information. If there were ~15,000 pre-orders in the first 10 minutes, then how many are shipping per day? If I ordered at 4 minutes, and I still don't have tracking, then it means they are shipping less than 3000 per day. So yeah. Color me unimpressed. And yet they act like we're the ones being unreasonable.
Saying, "Okay guys, one shipped on the 5th, so we're true to our word" is nonsense. If they ship one Vive a day it'll be 41 years before they get through the first 10 minutes worth of orders, so saying "on track" in meaningless, and insinuating that we've read between the lines is insulting given their previous statements and the charge on my credit card that's been sitting for over a week.

So I don't think it's unreasonable (based on earlier statements by HTC) for anyone who ordered in the first 10 minutes to be upset that they don't have their Vive yet. They should have planned this better. My card had a hold placed on it on the 1st of April, as did many many other people's. Explain to me how we're not supposed to think that shipment is imminent when this happens. If there's a hold on the 1st, then a charge on the 3rd, I can get a package by the 5th with 2 day shipping. Everyone who had their card charged thought this was happening.

It's now been so long the hold on my credit card is gone. Oops. HTC's word on the matter is that "the order is approved and at the warehouse. It's up to them to fulfill the order now." What in the world does that mean?

And yet they pretend that they aren't royally screwing up this whole thing.

Meanwhile I'll walk into a store and pick one up for half the price if this ever becomes more than a passing fancy. I refuse to buy anything again that games will completely stop supporting after a while. (I'm looking at you PS Move)

How's the EULA of this thing? If it's like FB's "We own everything you do with it", then Valve and HTC can go fuck themselves.