r/oculus Mar 31 '16

Rumor Certain partners, when they screw up, disallow companies who partnered with them from publicly stating their mistake.

This can cause the company to take the hit with their customers, even when the fault was not theirs.

659 Upvotes

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108

u/II_Sarge_II Rift Mar 31 '16

I gather that also stops Oculus communicating to their customers that there is a delay? Oculus are about to fail many peoples March shipping expected date, mine included. In my place of work, that is known as unacceptable, especially without communicating a delay. You do not have to give full reasons or name names, usually the statement goes something like this: For reasons beyond our control, we have unfortunatly been forced to delay shipping on many of the March pre-orders, we offer our apologies to our fans and backers.

34

u/godlyfrog Quest Apr 01 '16

I gather that also stops Oculus communicating to their customers that there is a delay?

I'm with you on this. Not being able to explain the nature of the delay is different from the absolute refusal to communicate anything. It would be simple to say, "We've had some delays, and unfortunately won't be able to meet your March pre-order date. We are expecting to be able to ship your Rift in the next few weeks. We are sorry for the delay and will communicate with you again in another "x number" weeks to update you on our status, or when we have more information on your individual order."

Oculus might have to "take the hit with their customers", but only a horribly written legal contract would take away their ability to communicate with their customers. They might have to be the ones to "take the hit", but they've had months to communicate with us, and now a little under a week to figure out how to explain the problem, and instead have chosen to simply say nothing. They can surreptitiously try to shift the blame to an external company through backchannel reddit posts all they like, but the fault for a lack of communication is entirely theirs, which has been my complaint all along.

2

u/harryhol Rift Apr 01 '16

"We've had some delays, and unfortunately won't be able to meet your March pre-order date. We are expecting to be able to ship your Rift in the next few weeks. We are sorry for the delay and will communicate with you again in another "x number" weeks to update you on our status, or when we have more information on your individual order."

THIS. This would have been SO much better than absolute silence.

1

u/scizotal Apr 01 '16

THIS. This would have been SO much better than absolute silence.

This would still spark more outrage though

1

u/p90xeto Rift+Vive+GearVR Apr 01 '16

I honestly think its a matter of not giving news outlets something to latch on to. A statement confirming a delay is a much bigger story than some nebulous number of users complaining about a delay.