Pimax’s anticipated 8K VR headset will not be shipping to Kickstarter backers this month or next.
The device, which raised over $4 million in crowd-funding last year, was originally estimated by the company to start shipping in December, with a basic package consisting of just the headset arriving for backers in January and the full packages including two controllers and two base stations landing in February. With no news on delivery in December, however, backers were worried they wouldn’t get their units in this initial window.
That appears to be the case; in a thread on the Pimax forums detailing the company’s plans for CES next week a member of the team confirmed that the ‘current ETA’ for the headset was Q2 2018. “We prefer to make it right, so won’t rush,” the company said. The estimated May 2018 delivery of the 8K X unit, which is designed for next-generation GPUs, will also be updated in the future.
Q2 appears to be the estimation for only the first batch of units right now. Pimax also plans to “ship a very small batch to the leaders in Pimax community and volunteers before shipping larger volume.”
It’s far from uncommon for Kickstarter projects to miss their estimated delivery goals by a few months, so this doesn’t necessarily mean backers should be worried, frustraiting as it may be. At CES, Pimax plans to showcase the latest prototype for the 8K VR headset with its tracking sensors now hidden, better IPD adjustment and better heat dissipation among other improvements. Tellingly, the team states it’s still looking into reaching a 85/90Hz refresh rate for the headset, which won’t be finalized until March at the earliest.
Pimax’s headset is promising a lot right now; the headset achieves 8K resolution using two 4K displays and the company claims it will ship with full support for SteamVR. Will it live up to people’s expectations?
