As many of you have no doubt heard by now, South Korea still hasn't received any DK2 shipments. No orders have progressed beyond "pending: waiting for stock". Recently, the official Korean OculusVR forums have boiled over with both positive and negative posts about the situation, and I've done my best to summarize what is going on:
- Early July: OculusVR HQ realizes they want to go through an extra "Korean Device Certification" process which will delay DK2 shipments to Korea, but help them later on when CV1 releases. OculusVR Korea branch states that the request was made later than it should have been, so shipments to Korea may be delayed.
- July 23rd: Rifts begin to ship worldwide except for Australia, NZ, and Korea. The Korean device hasn't been certified yet, so OculusVR doesn't ship to Korea.
- July 29th: Korean Device Certification is approved and the pre-import procedures are finished. Users find proof that the certificate was issued by searching Korean government web pages.
- July 29th: OculusVR Korea Branch notifies users that "We are finished with the certification process, and the Asia shipment center in Hong Kong has already begun setting aside DK2s for Korea shipments. There will be shipments to South Korea in August for certain."
- July 30th: OculusVR Korea Branch: "The certification process is over. There was an issue related to import classifications for devices with HDMI ports. We are currently looking towards shipping to Korea after August 15th."
- July 31st: OculusVR Korea Branch specifies that they are a support branch and so have no direct part in handling actual deliveries, but states "We are working to provide our waiting Korea-based users with as many benefits as possible to make up for the wait. We apologize again for the delay."
- August 2nd: OculusVR Korea Branch announces surprising good news for its users: "We apologize for the delay, and to make up for it Korean orders will ship in the first batch of August. We will be shipping all currently waiting South Korean DK2 orders at once in one big shipment. We received this info from OculusVR HQ and we are awaiting further details."
- August 2nd: Some OculusVR Korean forum users post ridiculously misleading and purposefully misinterpreted posts that cause a firestorm overnight about delayed shipments due to shipping everyone's orders "together in one big shipment." OculusVR Korea bans several users for the terrible posts and clarifies how shipments from Hong Kong work.
- August 7th: OculusVR Korea Branch announces: "The first batch to Korea will be after August 15th. We never said said 'Korean orders will ship the first batch of August' (Yes they did, using the exact same words: "8월 첫 배치때 현재 한국 내 주문된 모든 주문에 대한 일괄발송을 하겠다" and in their denial "8월 첫 배치때 한국으로 배송하겠다는 내용을 올린적도 없다")
- August 7th: OculusVR Korea Branch specifies that they will not be shipping "all currently waiting SK DK2 orders at once in one big shipment", but rather will ship fairly based on order date sequence like other regions after August 15th.
- August 15th: First English post asking on Reddit why no info on shipments to Korea. Still no news in over a week, and no orders have changed from pending to processing.
- August 16th: OculusVR Korea Branch responds to an avalanche of posts: "Please stop asking why August 15th has come and gone. We stated shipments would begin after August 15th, not on August 15th. We have no information other than what OculusVR HQ decides to tell us."
- August 17th-19th: More posts on Reddit asking about Korea status. Several posts on the official OculusVR forums in broken English asking for updates on the situation.
- August 19th: Cybereality finally posts a non-update on the Korea situation: "No need to worry, we will be shipping to Korea shortly. There were some logistical issues that delayed processing to the region. I believe this has mostly been solved now, and we will start shipping out packages as soon as we can. Thanks for your patience."
- August 20th, Wednesday: OculusVR Korea Branch announces happy news on Wednesday in giant red official font: "We will begin shipping this week and next week. We will be shipping just over half of the waiting South Korea DK2s during this period. We have the daily schedule for shipments to Korea in our hands (we won't release the specifics details) but WE CAN CONFIRM FOR CERTAIN THAT SHIPMENTS TO KOREA WILL BEGIN THIS WEEK." (Giant, huge red official text)
- August 20th-22nd Wed-Fri: The forums are very quiet and filled with happy anticipation. Everybody is well-behaved because they are patiently awaiting payment confirmation emails or status change to processing after this long saga.
- August 23rd Saturday Today: The forums began filling up last night and this morning with people asking what is going on with Korean shipments this time, since "this week" has essentially come and gone without results.
- August 23rd 1:30pm: OculusVR Korea Branch unstickies their last announcement confirming that shipments would begin this week. An official post explains why: "We will no longer be giving real-time information updates on Korea DK2 shipments. OculusVR HQ has told us this causes our users too much hardship when dates come and pass. We will no longer be able to give out information from OculusVR HQ when we receive it. You will have to wait for updates on the situation from OculusVR HQ instead."
- August 23rd 4:50pm Now: Users of the Korean OculusVR Forums are mostly upset that OculusVR HQ is holding so much of their information top secret. Lots of posts of support to the hard-working OculusVR Korea Branch for doing their best to keep us informed.
So here we are. OculusVR Korea Branch will no longer be giving us information on the situation, in order to stop what they call in Korean, "torturing our high hopes". So many dates have come and gone, but Oculus VR Korea Branch has really done their best to provide us with up to date information. I'm not sure how I feel about OculusVR Korea Branch no longer updating us on the status of our rifts.
It's funny (but maybe not so relevant) that the DK2 uses Samsung panels manufactured domestically inside of South Korea, yet South Korea is the only country to not receive any DK2s yet. I'd really like an update with some substance from OculusVR HQ on our situation in Korea, especially considering we can't get it now from the Korea branch.
What I really want most of all though is a DK2 in my hands that I can show to my friends and family here in Korea. I will try to be more patient over the next week. It's just hard...
Thank you for reading.
Submitted August 23, 2014 at 12:49AM by south_korifta http://ift.tt/1tuQL9a
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