HTC Vive Price Revealed - $799

Omnomnick

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In an official press release from HTC earlier today, it was revealed the Vive virtual reality headset, created in partnership by Valve and HTC, will ship for $799 when it first arrives in early April 2016. When it is made available for pre-purchase in just a few days on February 29th 2016, the Vive will ship to consumers with two free VR-only games, including Job Simulator by Owlchemy Labs and Fantastic Contraption by Northway / Radial Games. As two of the highest quality and fully-fledged experiences available, these two games are definitely great additions to the pre-order bundle.


Although steep, this price point is actually not too unusual or unexpected when compared to the price of the Oculus Rift announced back in January, which retails for $599 but lacks an additional tracker and the still-unfinished Touch Controllers, which will be sold separately later in the year. In comparison, the Vive will be bundled with all of necessary components and peripherals required for full room-scale use, including two base stations, two Wand controllers, and the headset itself. It has also been confirmed the Vive will be able to further "bridge both realities" by allowing users to respond to incoming or missed calls, to reply to text messages, or to check calender notifications, all from within the headset itself. This is possibly achieved through some kind of Android integration, given HTC's considerable marketshare with smartphones.

With pre-orders opening in just a few days, it'll be interesting to see if HTC and Valve's higher price point but more-complete bundle will have similar success to the lower priced Oculus Rift, and even to the still to-be-priced PlayStationVR. Let the games begin!
 
This is actually cheaper than I expected... I was afraid the HMD alone would be around this price and the whole ecosystem would cost over a grand all told, so this is good news as far as I'm concerned. Can't wait to preorder in a week.

Thanks for pointing out that the price point ISN'T higher than the Rift considering that this includes the base stations and controllers whereas the Rift controllers aren't included.
 
I think a lot of people who are PC gamers are going to buy this. I think it caters most to that demographic. People who have enough money to buy a top notch PC, can surely save enough money to buy a VR-headset, right? And play games with intensified immersion. Though the Vive comes with everything in one purchase, so why not just buy a rift if you're never really going to use you're room or don't have the ability to?

I don't think the "room-function" would be for everybody, I mean, normal people with average work hours and average space in their homes. I don't think it's worth a private buy just for that... Kinda like Eye-toy, just a little time-waster, nothing addictive. Maybe just my personal opinion, but it just seems impractical to buy the full set and only use half of it for the majority of the time.

But if there's enough money in it, I could almost see this redefining what arcade is. Game centers in which you could rent a room for a specific time and play a VR game. I dunno, maybe even family entertainment? It just depends on how much money you could earn from it, I mean, if there's a high enough demand, I'm sure it could be done.

Maybe I'm just crazy...
 
But if there's enough money in it, I could almost see this redefining what arcade is. Game centers in which you could rent a room for a specific time and play a VR game. I dunno, maybe even family entertainment?
This intrigues me.
 
This intrigues me.
I totally agree with lolcomputer on this point, I've been championing this idea for the past year since Valve and HTC announced the Vive. It's too perfect for those setups to not be used.
 
Have they announced any recommended/target specs for playing games with it like oculus have?
 
I got my Vive on Monday. It's ****ing awesome.
 
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