Oculus Rift Pre-Orders

I also got the apology email today.

It is indeed a first rate launch debacle, all Oculus can do nor is damage control and hopefully learn from it. I am a bit of skeptic with the latter, as the DK1 and Dk2 pre-orders were also a mess for Aussies.

I think it fair to say Daniel from Flyinside has his own slight preference for the Rift, but that said it is not a totally unbiased review in that he is talking about Flyinside in relation to the HMDs, which is a seated experience. Even Daniel notes the WOW factor of room scale and associated controllers.

The technical specifications of both the Vive and Rift are similar, they are both quality first gen HMDs, but they are aimed at different types of experiences and that is where they differ.

In a technical sense the Rift can do tracking in a room scale, but it does not yet have the Touch controllers, nor does it have anything equivalent to Chaperone, which is really necessary for safe room scale. Oculus seems to be suggesting the same thing they did regarding motion cancellation for VR, that developers be responsible for developing their own form of Chaperone. Personally I think that is not practical.

The Vive can do seated experiences but at this stage mainstream game developers have not had time to incorporate support, so there is a lack of quality seated experiences for the Vive.

So right now which is best depends on your specific use scenario, the Vive excels at room scale and the Rift has a greater range of seated experiences.

No problem...when they both finally arrive

I got a further tease email from Oculus today: "Your order has been processed and your Rift is almost on its way! Look for a shipping confirmation email with tracking information soon".

At least my Vive is on the way and at the moment tracking says Thursday for delivery.

I really feel for you, it really has been a disastrous launch in so many different ways.

And Australian's have copped the worst of the previous debacles, and people wonder why we often don't swallow Oculus platitudes as easily as others.

Personally I think for the companies involved it is more about store dominance than anything @Goatboy. That said I believe first gen VR is still very much a niche rather than consumer product.

Looks like further Rift shipping delays are on the cards: https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/com...ory_updated_with_estimated_ship_dates/d1z94yz

My Rift order page now says: Estimated Ship Date 4/25/2016 - 5/5/2016.

I think there will be a lot of pressure on Oculus to explain exactly what actually went so wrong with the Rift launch.

Hmmm, Oculus just seems more chaotic day by day, I have now been charged and that can't happen until the Rift ships, but no tracking number yet and no further email...talk about being treated as a mushroom. The only upside is that there is the possibility my order has shipped.