The 900,000 helmets listed on the official website were sold out within two minutes. The website server almost went offline because of the huge amount of traffic. Just like that, 900,000 helmets were gone, not a single one left.
Project Director Li Guangwen’s mouth was wide open as he looked at the sales number on his screen and didn’t say anything.
The employee sitting in front of him spoke.
“This is crazy… Two minutes after we went live, all 900,000 helmets were sold out.
“Judging by the data from Star Sky Technology, the number of registered users on the Phantom system has already exceeded 300,000.”
Li Guangwen frowned and asked, “How is it so little?”
The employee sitting at his computer said, “Probably because some users bought more than one machine.”
After all, online purchases were not as easy to control as in-person purchases. Even though the limit for each user was set to one unit, some users could bypass the limit by using fake mobile phone numbers and changing their IP addresses.
An employee sitting nearby suddenly asked, “Do you think there are resellers stocking up?”
“For sure…” Li Guangwen nodded and clapped his hands. He said, “But it’s fine, the reseller market won’t affect us. The new factory at the Jiangcheng industrial park is about to open soon. It will double our capacity!”
When the employees heard the project manager, they smiled.
There was a joyful atmosphere in the sales department office.
Even though they did not actually contribute a lot to the sales strategy, the launch of the HV-1 helmet was a huge success!
They were going to get huge bonuses!
Jin Ling University.
Dorm 201.
Even though they couldn’t afford to buy one, they were getting excited just by watching the reselling price increase.
Yang Shuang looked at the number on his phone. His hands were trembling as he spoke.
“This is crazy… The price of one helmet is over 100,000!”
100,000…
If I could buy one for 12,000, that’s almost 90,000 in profit!
He started to regret not going to Shanghai and lining up at the conference.
Wu Di was sitting on his chair, scrolling through his phone. He suddenly stood up and walked over to Yang Shuang. When he saw the number on Yang Shuang’s phone, he was astonished.
“A hundred grand for one helmet? Who is buying these?”
Last night, these two were talking about the HV-1 helmet that Huawei was about to release. They were still agonizing over the 12,000 yuan price tag, which was almost their entire year of living expenses.
But now, the situation was even bleaker.
How were they supposed to find 100,000?
Forget about it.
Yang Shuang: “This thing is selling like hot cakes… Apparently, there are foreigners that are buying it from our website as well.”
Wu Di: “How do you know that?”
“Because someone posted a Tiktok of some foreigners sitting in an airport, using the airport wifi to access the website. Unfortunately, none of them were able to buy one.”
Duan Siqi was sitting by the side, listening to the whole conversation. He couldn’t help but join in.
“… Are they crazy? I heard that the Phantom system can only run on the Star Sky Technology cloud computing network. What’s the point of buying a helmet? They can’t even use it. Might as well buy a pair of VR goggles instead.”
He had been studying the VR industry for a while now, and he had a certain understanding of the Phantom system. The researchers at Star Sky Technology were also happy to talk with him. Mostly because none of this was confidential information, not to mention they already had public registered patents.
Yang Shuang shook his head and spoke.
“Who knows, maybe they want to use it as a motorcycle helmet? But I think you can’t see anything after you put it on… Maybe we just don’t understand how rich people think. Apparently, some people flew all the way here just to buy one. Do you think they care about 12,000 yuan?”
Wu Di sighed and said, “For f*ck sake, this is horrible!”
Yang Shuang suddenly remembered something.
“Oh yeah, CEO Duan, didn’t Star Sky Technology send you a helmet?”
Duan Siqi paused for a second and felt the gazes behind his back.
He turned around and saw the envious eyes of his roommates.
Duan Siqi paused for a second and quickly explained, “Don’t even think about it! My helmet is limited to closed beta players! No way I’m selling it! I’m going to pass it on to my kids.”
“Limited to closed beta players?” Yang Shuang looked at his phone and said, “I think someone listed it for sale yesterday, let me see… Jesus.”
Wu Di leaned forward and asked, “How much is it?”
“30… million.”
The dorm went silent; the only sound they could hear was the laptop fans.
Yang Shuang’s hands trembled; he almost couldn’t hold his phone anymore.
“That’s enough to buy a Lamborghini, right?”
Wu Di gulped and said, “That’s enough to buy a house in Shanghai.”
“That’s crazy! This is crazy!”
When Duan Siqi heard thirty million, his heart dropped to his stomach.
He dropped his pen on the table as he covered his face with his hands.
F*ck sake…
This is just a VR helmet!
I played with it so much, I’m sick of it!
Is it really worth that much?!
According to his understanding, even though this was a limited closed bettester helmet, the only thing it gave was a closed beta medal to the player’s account. The player could log into the Phantom system and choose whether they wanted to display that medal.
Other than showing off that someone was a “closed beta” tester, this medal was useless. There wasn’t any closed beta player privilege or advantage.
Thirty million for a medal.
Duan Siqi didn’t know what was going on.
Just like his roommates said…
This was crazy…