Chinese developers find themselves unable to pre-order the second dev kit for the popular VR device.
Polish Tinkerers Mepi Construct A "Third-Person Mode" Device
We recently talked about the amazing stuff creative developers can do with the Oculus rift, such as the Polish group mepi who made that awesome "See Yourself In Third Person" device by rigging it up with two GoPros on a 3D-printed set. Well, Chinese developers are going to have to wait just that little bit longer due to some overzealousness on their part with the first dev kit.
A Chinese reddit user complained about the inability to pre-order dev kit 2, and was actually given an official statement by an Oculus Rift customer service rep: "Yes, it is a bummer that we've had to suspend sales in China due to extreme reseller purchases. We need to make sure that we are doing what we can to make sure that resellers that are looking to flip our product for a profit are not taking stock away from legitimate developer purchases globally. Our product, in its current form, is a developer kit, meant for developers that develop VR content. We are looking into alternative ways to make sure that our development kits are getting into legitimate developer hands in China."
Children Test Out Oculus Rift In Landmark Study
Extreme reselling has historically been a problem for tech stuff in China, as Apple has had their hands full with this problem for years now, despite (/because of?) their FoxConn facilities being major employers in the region. This all of course brings up the fascinating question of whether or not the next Bond movie will have a black market scene amid snowy peaks where a bunch of terrorist stereotypes are playing VR Fable 3 as Daniel Craig walks by.
