HTC Vive Will Cost $800 in April Launch
The hotly anticipated HTC Vive is officially on its way. It's been confirmed for quite some time. But now, Taiwanese phone manufacturer HTC and game developer Valve said that the new virtual reality gear will drop in early April 2016 with a price tag of $799.
The Vive will be available for pre-ordering starting Feb. 29.
HTC's new virtual reality system has generated buzz through demos and appearances, mostly because of its ability to offer limited movement to its players. This further enhances the "reality" created in the players' game of choice.
The Vive's complete system includes the main headset, two motion-detection base stations, earbuds, a link box for the PC and two wireless controllers, which act as virtual hands in the game or virtual world.
"There is nothing else that can do what the Vive does," Dan O'Brien, vice president of HTC's virtual reality arm, said during the press briefing ahead of the Mobile World Congress. "It's more compelling than buying things piecemeal."
Other VR systems in the works include the Oculus Rift and the Sony PlayStation VR. The former has revealed its $599 pricing, while the latter has not yet divulged the pricing.
Aside from the complete gear for the system, the HTC Vive will come with two free games. The first is Owlchemy Labs' "Job Simulator: The 2050 Archives," which is a game that offers the experience of working in the year 2050 when robots will be doing the regular jobs like office work and cooking.
The second game is Northway Games' "Fantastic Contraption," a puzzle game that places the player on a grass island in the sky.
More games for the VR system are said to be confirmed during the Game Developers Conference in March, all of which are planned to be available in Valve's successful Steam platform.
Although it is being launched in the gaming community, reports reveal that the Vive is being developed for something greater. HTC and Valve are hoping to partner with other developers for content that reaches and benefits other industries such as entertainment, retail, education, design, healthcare and automotive.
It's a vision for virtual reality that is shared by many of the world's innovators including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg during his appearance at the Samsung Mobile World Congress.
"Pretty soon we're going to live in a world where everyone has the power to share and experience whole scenes as if you're just there, right there in person," he said. "And that's why Facebook is investing so much early on in virtual reality. So we can hope to deliver these types of social experiences."
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