I write this under the impression of my exchange with Pimax in the last few days. I apologize for the wall-o-text, but it has to be said.
If we look at the many delays Pimax deliverables have demonstrated, some stand out as being quite peculiar:
Exhibit A: content redeem codes.
According to Pimax, all is prepared, i.e. they have the steam keys, just need to send them. This was said many moons ago. Yet, till date hardly anybody received such a simple email, right ?
Exhibit B: Lighthouse boxes (and Index controllers)
According to Kevin’s post in April 2019, they had finally managed to agree on a deal with Valve, and would have enough in stock to start shipments to the backers within 2-3 weeks - which would mean we should have received them in May 2019. Yet, till date no deliveries were received, right ?
I recall Pimax informing us in autumn that the deliveries were delayed due to Valve having surprisingly delivered the lighthouse boxes only as bulk deliveries and Pimax were required to perform a) quality assurance and b) re-packaging for consumer delivery.
In my case, I had contact with Pimax Support (Sally Huang) and Pimax in the forum (Matthew Xu) in late December 2019. They confirmed to me that I would get the lighthouse boxes shipped to me without having to wait for the Sword/Sword Sense controllers to be ready for shipment (which will not happen in foreseeable future anyhow). Shipment was said to be performed as soon as the deliverables were ready to ship.
That is four months ago. Yes, Corona struck at CNY, but the workers are back to the factories since 3 weeks and all of these activities should have been completed in 2019 anyhow, so it is entirely obscure what is holding them up.
So I contacted Support and Pimax Quorra in the past days - the response I got from (again) Sally Huang was as follows:
"Sorry to have kept you waiting.Your base statons haven’t been shipped yet.
In fact,we are confirming the logistics cost and transportation plan, which will take some time,when we have new progress, I’ll give you the latest news."
As a reminder - we are talking about deliverables I paid for in 2017, which did not require any R&D work by Pimax other than possible a new housing, and according to Pimax were in stock in April 2019, then allegedly required some QA and re-packaging work. That’s it.
Now, in March 2020, I am being told that they need to confirm the logistics cost and transportation plan ? How could they not have figured out the logistics since April 2019, when they were saying they would ship within 2-3 weeks ?! And then the statement which will take some time rings all alarm bells with me - they are already in fact saying that we can forget about any delivery in the coming few weeks, better months. My other Kickstarter/Indiegogo projects with China-based deliveries are shipping just well (e.g. I received my PrinCube and the PicoPix Max is shipping in numbers since 2 weeks now and I am in row to get mine in April).
And of course in December 2019 and 3 days ago they also tried to play the good ol’ we need you to update our shipping information survey trick to buy some time - how many times more do I need to remind them of my shipping information ?
Since they introduced the different Upgrade Plans, swapping for Index controllers became an option. These deliveries seem to have gone missing analogous to the lighthouse boxes, just happening within a shorter time-frame.
Exhibit C: Hand-tracking module
I paid for mine during the KS campaign in 2017. Still missing in action, hardly any communication about it (as it won’t be many who backed it).
Conclusion
The odd thing I see as a common denominator in all of these is the fact that Pimax would a) not have much internal effort related to such deliverables as they are more or less completely supplied by a 3rd party and just need to be shipped onwards to the backers, and b) have to pay a supplier before receiving such deliverables from them.
This is a clear indication in my view that Pimax are not planning to deliver any of such 3rd party supplied deliverables in near-term nor in mid-term, and they have no good explanations for the sum of delays we have seen now. Some of the explanations may have made sense, if viewed in isolation. But if the figurative lightning allegedly always strikes at Pimax, then simple probability considerations tell us that this has now become what would have to be considered an extremely unlikely scenario, if we are asked to believe it. Often the obvious explanation is the correct one at the end.
So if there is no convincing explanation any longer for not completing what-ever internal actions ever were required to ship such 3rd party products to the backers, then the most logical explanation is, that Pimax have never in fact paid for such supplies, and as a result never received the steam keys, lighthouse boxes, Index controllers nor the hand-tracking modules, and therefore are not in a position to ship any of these soon.
They may scramble to send e.g. the cheap Steam keys if they feel that it is needed to buy them more time, and I bet they are going to ship a few lighthouse boxes and Index controllers to be able to point to those users in the forum to muddy the waters, but I doubt that Pimax are capable of shipping the deliverables in any substantial quantities, because I fear that Pimax are not in a position to afford them, i.e. they have no money anymore. Which typically is the last step beyond going bankrupt, unless they are able to get an investor to save them. It would also be fitting that Pimax started to take pre-orders with immediate collection of the payments way before being able to deliver on these.
I hate to say it but I fear we might not see much coming out of Pimax in future anymore.
In any case I personally will certainly not invest any further money into Pimax and will warn people in the German VR forum to rather wait for the Pimax products to become available from a trusted retailer.
For us 8KX backers it brings up the question what to do in terms of the return of the loaner units. If we return them we might still never see the 8KX, nor any of the other outstanding deliverables. If we don’t Pimax use that as a reason to not ship the 8KX to us. I guess the sane thing would be to wait until the first backers who returned their loaners truly received the 8KX and to only ship it back then, hoping to not be the first where Pimax won’t deliver anything anymore.
What do you guys think ?
@Sweviver: Marcin, you must have a slighty better insight than we have - I would make sure to care about myself in good time if I were you. If you cover up until the bitter end that will take away a lot of credibility in the community, so if you can’t speak up due to confidentiality undertakings then I’d at least distance myself from Pimax before it blasts up in your face too. Take care, man.
