The HTC Vive is set to ship tomorrow, April 5, but many early adopters won’t be receiving their enormous box of goodies as planned. Over the weekend many frustrated VR enthusiasts reported receiving emails from HTC notifying them that their month-old pre-orders had been canceled. Something definitely went wrong on HTC’s end, but it’s customers who are ultimately at a loss here, as anyone who had their pre-order canceled will be missing out on the first wave of shipments.
The silver lining, if there is one, is that if you were affected by this error you can still get in touch with HTC and get lined up for their second wave of Vive shipments; you won’t get pushed behind everyone currently placing their orders. You may have to jump through some hoops, though. Users are reporting on Reddit that they’ve had a difficult time getting their payment processed, and that HTC Support is allegedly requiring remote desktop access in order to secure your wave 2 pre-order, which is bizarre.
Oculus also ran into issues at launch. Apparently, even though they had a good head-start on pre-orders, Oculus wasn’t prepared for the day-one demand and a component shortage means that they simply can’t manufacture enough HMDs. Oculus has been waiving the shipping fees for customers experiencing delays, and if you’re planning to order a Rift today, the earliest you’d see it is likely mid-July. Although it’s encouraging to see such a huge demand for VR hardware early on, it’s a shame that neither Oculus nor HTC were ready to meet that demand accordingly. Here’s hoping Sony’s taking notes.
Source: VG 24/7