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Oculus Suspends Oculus Rift Dev Kit Sales In China
An anonymous reader writes with news about how Oculus is dealing with the reselling of dev kits in China. Bad news for those of you looking to get your hands on a preorder of the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset. A representative from Oculus recently confirmed that the company has had to stop selling its headsets in China as a result of an undisclosed amount of reselling. Which is to say, some of those preordering the developer edition of the virtual reality headset in China — not the consumer product, which hasn't been officially released in any capacity just yet — aren't actually looking to develop anything on the headsets. Nor are they even interested in getting a first look at the virtual reality capabilities of the $350 development kit. They're scalping, plain and simple, to take advantage of what appears to be a hefty amount of demand for the device.
Wouldn't that make trying to scalp them prohibitively inconvenient?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
There's nothing wrong with "scalping, plain and simple." It's just a secondary market for goods - the very kind we like when we talk about books or music. You have a right to resell things.
If there's a very active secondary market for something, that suggests people are having a hard time getting it from the primary source, or there's just not enough to go around to everyone who wants one, so a higher market price forms. It encourages people who have one to sell it for the new, higher price (increasing supply); and it ensures that those who most urgently want one can get one if they so choose.
Wonder what the public key field is for?
I realize they have the right to stop selling anything to anyone at any time for any reason, but I'm struggling to figure out what their beef with this is. They should simple alter the dev kit product so that it is virtually impossible to not spot the difference between it and the actual product. This way the resellers will be prevented from claiming the device is the genuine article. Otherwise, what's the problem? Someone else making money off your product? Did Steve Jobs come out of the grave and buy this company? Am I being an asshole or is this just more anti-Chinese xenophobic garbage in the US media and amongst decision makers here? So what if I decide I want to do that, from Colorado? What are you going to do, sue me? I buy it, it's my property. It doesn't quite matter why I buy it, or for what purpose I buy it. Then I have the right to sell it. For whatever price I value it at that you are willing to pay. Is this not the way capitalism is supposed to work? I'm not going to pretend it does work, I'm just asking, did I get that part right?
The only thing about this article that shocks me is the fact that the sellers were naive or ignorant of the fact that this is obviously going to happen, as it has with every device available in any market. There are many Chinese (especially students) who live abroad and have 'side-businesses' where they open up taobao stores and sell 'import goods' which are local purchases for them, they'll get you whatever you want from domestic western/1st world markets and mail them to you in China..