HiGame

When HTC and Oculus launched their VR headsets, both companies ran into fulfillment problems that caused significant delays. Oculus, however, seemed to be more significantly impacted than HTC, and suffered a larger number of delays. As of today, HTC claims to be shipping out all orders within 72 hours, while simultaneously expanding its retail availability and demo locations.

According to HTC’s press release, the Vive is now on sale in 24 countries and can be purchased from select Microsoft stores, GameStop, and MicroCenter locations. Pre-orders placed through these retailers will begin shipping this week as well. The company also notes that it’s expanding its demo locations up to 100 stores across North America. Microsoft Store demos will expand to 51 showrooms, up from the current 29, GameStop will have 40 demo locations (up from 10), and MicroCenter will have 10 total, up from 5.



The HTC Vive

“Since beginning pre-orders at the end of February and shipping in early April, we’ve seen incredible interest in Vive,” said Dan O’Brien, VP of VR at HTC. “Working with our retail partners has only enhanced that momentum because more people are able to try the only truly immersive virtual reality offering on the market today.”

What about Oculus?

Oculus has made headlines recently for its decision to introduce DRM to the Oculus Store and break third-party compatibility after Palmer Luckey promised he had no interest in doing so. Palmer has a long history of making statements and then breaking or retracting them, as catalogued here. The debate over copyright and interoperability in VR, while important, has somewhat obscured the fact that Oculus does seem to be making progress in fulfilling its orders.


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