Oculus Rift Launch Details - The Good and the Bad!

[Tbone]

I realize that not all of you are obsessively following the launch of the Rift like I am, so I thought I would try to get people up to date!

On March 28th, the press embargo was released and Kickstarter backers started receiving their Rifts. The press reviews have been overwhelmingly positive as have the reviews by the first to receive the product. The headset is light, the audio is great, the optics are wonderful, the tracking volume is massive (room scale with one camera), and the software is robust and varied!

Most of the negatives from the press are actually from those who have not received the Rift yet. As a result they are venting their frustrations via articles. More on that in a second. The other negatives of the device itself are the fact that it didn't come bundled with the Touch controllers (the press who had tried Touch are craving more) and a slight "halo" effect in the peripheral in high contrast scenes (bright on a black background). While most of the people who actually have Rifts said it wasn't a big issue, since a majority of people don't have their Rift yet, a big deal was made about it. Time will tell how big of an issue it is, but I haven't seen it mentioned in any of the actual press reviews.

Now on to the launch itself. A LOT of people had a March ETA for their shipment. A LOT of those people still don't have a shipping date. As a matter of fact, only half of them have received an email that stated their deliver would take place in "1 to 3 weeks". This has caused a lot of concern for people who assumed they'd be in the first "March 28th" batch. While Oculus has been completely quiet on the issue, an all but verified Oculus insider implied the issue is with a third party company doing the payment processing. Part of the "partnership" with that company is that they aren't allowed to even say that there is a problem hence the silence.

As a result, currently preorders are trickling out a lot slower than expected since items won't be shipped until they've been paid for. It's assumed if the payment issues are resolved, shipments will be sped up considerably. It's all still speculation at this point, however, as nothing is confirmed.

Basically, GETTING a Rift at this point is the bad. Once you get it, it's all good from there!