Chapter 1173 Sold Out!
The Samsung staff members had underestimated people’s enthusiasm for virtual reality technology.
After more than 50,000 helmets were sold out at the live venue, the price of a resold HV-1 helmet exceeded 50,000 yuan, which was more than a four times increase over the original 12,000 yuan price.
The people that sold their helmets early began to feel regretful. On the other hand, sellers were constantly canceling their previous sales and listing the item at a higher price.
The reselling market was going through a volatile time.
Not a lot of trades were going through, but the bid and offer prices of the helmets were jumping up every minute. The resellers had the complete upper hand.
Normally at a product launch like this, there would be resellers standing around the venue, asking the empty-handed people if they wanted to buy the item that the reseller just bought.
However, the situation here was the exact opposite. Even though there were resellers around the venue, they weren’t trying to talk with the customers that were empty-handed; instead, they were hara.s.sing the customers that had already gotten their hands on a helmet.
Whenever they saw someone like that, they would rush up to them and ask relentlessly—
“Hey, bro? You selling? I’m bidding 24,000 yuan! That’s double the original price! One time offer!”
“Screw off! I’m bidding 30,000! Sell it to me!”
Of course, in addition to resellers, there were also people that just wanted to buy the helmets for themselves.
But then again, who wouldn’t want to experience VR?
Therefore, regardless of what price they were offered, most people gave a short and concise answer.
“F*ck off!”
On the other hand, the helmet had reached the top of the trending page. Many people who were lucky enough to grab a helmet already began posting their experience online. They were met with jealousy and envy.
For example, the well-known director w.a.n.g Lihui posted a long blog post on his Weibo immediately after the press conference, describing his experience of using the fully immersive HV-1 VR technology.
[First of all, this is not an ad. It was so difficult for me to get a ticket for the press conference. Huawei and Star Sky Technology don’t need me to advertise their product.
[So, as the world’s first publicly sold neural interface virtual reality device, the HV-1 equipped with the Phantom system has taken virtual reality to the next level. There are no other products on the market that even come close. What I have to do now is wait for Xiaomi to release their helmets, then make a comparison between the two devices.
[In terms of price, 12,000 yuan is definitely not cheap. In fact, it is the price of mid to high-end laptops, but it’s totally worth spending the money to buy an entirely new universe. In fact, I have noticed that some people in the reselling market are selling it at 200,000. It seems like the market recognizes its value.
[Of course, I’m not recommending my fans to buy a helmet on the reseller market. After all, Huawei will soon release a new batch of helmets next month. When the supply meets the demand, everyone will get an opportunity to live in a beautiful simulated world.
[So, in terms of my thoughts, I can’t even use words to describe this feeling. This is something entirely new and unique; it goes beyond my expectation of the Internet and the virtual world! I’m sure most of you have watched Ready Player One, and I can guarantee this experience is the same as the movie! Even if you play all day, your eyes will never get tired; the images are directly sent to your optic nerve!
[Of course, as a filmmaker, virtual reality technology has made me think about the future of the film industry. Maybe it won’t be long before we begin watching movies in a virtual reality world, allowing us to get a totally immersive experience of the characters…]
This blogpost on Weibo was shared all across the internet.
There were only a million helmets available on the market. Not to mention the online sales wouldn’t begin until night time. However, the number of people around the world looking forward to this helmet had exceeded tens of millions or even hundreds of millions.
People had fantasized about virtual reality technology for a long time.
For a long time, science fiction movies had depicted a future where people were completely immersed in VR technology. Maybe in the future, reality would no longer be a boundary for people’s imagination and experience. Unlimited information flow would broaden people’s minds to a whole new world.
Now that this technology finally went from the laboratory into the industry, almost everyone wanted to know what this so-called heaven experience felt like.
According to statistics from major search websites, keywords such as virtual reality, Phantom system, HV-1, etc had begun trending.
People were more than enthusiastic about this technology.
Everyone was frantically finding information about this new technology, hoping to get an understanding before they enter a new era…
…
The original product launch was scheduled to end at 5 pm.
People didn’t expect it to end at 3 pm.
Because the reselling price continued to increase, people from neighboring cities even came here by high-speed rail. As a result, more and more people were at the venue, they had to end the conference to avoid any accidents.
Also, the 100,000 helmets were all sold out at three o’clock.
This was rather unfortunate for the people that came all the way here…
Even Huawei didn’t expect the live sales to go so well.
Even though they expected the world’s first neural interface virtual reality helmet to be completely sold out, and they even cooperated with the local police, they didn’t expect it to be this crazy…
The press conference ended.
Ten o’clock at night.
The Huawei headquarters was still brightly lit.
The people from the sales department were sitting in front of their computers, staring meticulously at their screens, scared of making a single mistake.
In two hours, 900,000 helmets were going to be listed on the official website.
What baffled people was that, two hours before the beginning of the sales, they already started to receive a huge amount of website traffic.
it was obvious that people were constantly refres.h.i.+ng the page, as if they didn’t want to miss the sale.
After what happened during the conference, the project director responsible for the HV-1 helmet felt a million pounds of pressure on his shoulders. Even though he was drinking one cup of tea after another, he wasn’t able to calm his nerves down.
Time pa.s.sed by minute by minute; soon, it was almost midnight.
An employee sitting in front of his computer screen spoke excitedly.
“Hey, boss, it’s almost time!”
The project director put down his cup of tea; he tried to calm down as he spoke in a serious tone.
“Let’s begin the sale!”