When the Oculus Rift was first announced, a number of people signed up for its pre-order hoping they could be among the first to experience Virtual Reality. Initially slated for a release on March 28, only a very few number of early buyers were able to receive their VR headset on time. And as majority of these pre-orders have not yet been delivered, Oculus has sent out emails to buyers over the weekend explaining the problem was due to "an unexpected component shortage." According to Oculus, this has resulted to slowed early deliveries.
In consolation for the delay, Oculus has informed its buyers that they will be waiving all shipping costs for orders placed to date. The company has even decided to waive shipping costs for the units that have already been delivered. Additionally, they are hoping they could settle all early deliveries by April 12. On their email, the company added that they will be sending an email one to three weeks before shipping the headsets as well as another email once the headset has been shipped. Meanwhile, the new Oculus Rift orders placed are expected to be shipped in July.
Aside from the Oculus Rift, HTC has announced that some orders of their HTC Vive headset have been delayed due to a payment processing error. The problem was caused by some payments processed by Digital River which were mistakenly denied. Because of the error, the orders were canceled. HTC is working on processing the payments to ensure that customers who ordered the Vive will receive it.
The HTC Vive is one of the biggest competitors of the Oculus Rift.