HTC Vive Priced at $799, Pre-Orders Begin February 29

Anyone who understands what these things are understand that they need a powerful graphics card. The only people who don't get that are the people who want a toy, and should probably get google cardboard instead.

Everyone seems reasonably accepting of the price but I'd be surprised if this is a success. There just aren't enough people with the space seemingly needed for the Vive to work to it's full potential. It might be the highest quality of all the VR options but I feel like it's likely to have the lowest potential number of customers.

It seems likely Sony will have the cheapest option and although it might not be as high quality as either the Oculus or Vive I think it will be the key player in making VR a widespread success due to the significantly lower cost of entry.

HTC Priced at $799

I know that they are not in the best shape, but still it's a bargain for the whole company.

"Enabling you to stay connected to the real world, without exiting the virtual world"

Phones are officially the real world. What did the real world become? What's the new 3rd tier where old people live called?

All the people hoping for a great pack-in game must be pretty damn disappointed now!

Honestly, I'm shocked that all of these companies seem to be willing to sell their VR stuff without any attractive games. Guess its going to be a couple of years of 'experiences' before any real games come out..

The point is that a lot of people tend to overlook the price of upgrading your PC to meet specs in these conversations, which in some cases can easily double the cost of entry. Obviously people know that a good computer is needed, it's just that we concentrate on how much the peripherals cost when that part of VR gaming is only half the battle. The consumer is being asked to spend quite a bit of money for a toy that doesn't even guarantee you usability out of the box. Also lets be clear here that at this point in time this thing is nothing more than a toy - and it hasn't even proven yet that it's a good toy either.

To me there is also something incredibly strange about selling this very expensive piece of tech that isn't a self contained purchase, that won't simply "work" out of the box. Maybe because VR helmets are basically peripherals, and historically those were self contained purchases. You bought a very expensive gaming keyboard and all you had to do was plug it in, same went for speakers, monitors, mice etc. All tools that augmented your user experience.

It all makes me think that ideally these things should have an external box that does the graphical computing and takes the onus off the end user to bring their PC within reach of being able to use it. Of course that would make this whole thing even more ridiculously expensive, but I guess then you would know the absolute bottom line cost.

I'll wait for the proper games to be developed.

Well, I wouldn't say a peripheral just works. You still need a computer suited for the peripheral. I learned that the hard way back when I saved up money to buy a 14" svga monitor only to find the video card in our computer could only do EGA. That was a rough day. I was 11 though, so I had an excuse. Or when my cousin bought these awesome bluetooth speakers for his desktop computer only to find out the motherboard in the thing didn't include a bluetooth module. One of the first things I did at my old job was drive for an hour to replace a PC only to find out once I got there that the new model I was swapping out didn't have DVI outs and the client's monitor was hooked up using DVI.

And if they did do some kind of dock or breakout box to contain the video card (and a PSU I'm thinking, there's no way to guarantee the system has the juice to power the gpu, not to mention you'd need some kind of interface for the processing in the box to talk to the hardware in the PC, otherwise the breakout box would just be a second pc, really) then the entire thing would probably end up being closer to $2k or even more and people would be even more upset than they are currently.

It's a niche product for people with a well beyond average interest in computers and for everyone else there's the PSVR or the samsung gear vr thing, which is a very different product but still incredibly cool.

Oh, and when people find out the PSVR is gonna be like $600 if you don't already have the required PS camera and the move controllers...that's gonna be fun to watch.

Sweet jesus.

@amafi: Yah I agree that this is definitely an enthusiast hobby type of situation, where the people getting in on it are (or at least should be) experienced PC users. Also while the cost for having an integrated vid card and PSU to handle the brunt of the GPU calculations would make the package exorbitantly more expensive, I still do feel it would make the situation a lot more clear cut in terms of costs. Paying $1600 for the whole package but being able to simply plug-and-play out of the box is something I'm sure a lot of people would opt for. Then again that is forcing those with already beefy PC's to spend money on additional parts that their systems could already handle so thats not a great solution either. I guess in a way those VR-ready PC builds I've seen floating around are the equivalent of what I'm thinking about.

Of course I'm coming at this from a position of someone that has been steadily moving away from PC gaming over the years and have become accustomed to the comfortable, if not a bit lazy, console life style where everything is very much defined from beginning to end. You buy this one console and it is guaranteed to play everything you put into it. Likewise I'd like these VR helmets to be a thing you simply buy, plug in and use, without any external tinkering. But like I said, that is a very console-like mindset, and these things (obviously apart from the Sony peripheral) aren't made with console gamers in mind.

I look forward to a future in which these headsets are affordable.

That's cheaper than I thought I'm guessing about $1,200 in Australia haha.

If you were in the US you would pay $599 + taxes. The taxes are already added in the EU price. The only thing you pay more for is shipping.

@neozeon: I think it's better to do it properly than to half ass it and ruin it's potential. Yeah it's a bit expensive but gaming over all is a pretty cheap hobby. My other main hobby are dirt bikes and you want to talk about expensive just the gear you need is thousands of dollars not to even mention a bike. I see VR more along those lines then regular gaming it's a whole new experience and those are always expensive to get into. Jez even just 10 years ago if you wanted to keep your pc up to spec it was mad expensive to stay on the bleeding edge, I think VR is going to bring that back and frankly that's a good thing to push the medium forward. It has been decades since we've seen the technological improvements we used to see in games in the 90's.

@killergoalie: No price announced yet. It will definitely not be 120. Anything less than 200 would blow my mind to smitherines.
Also, for preordering, you're paying shipping twice. Once for Rift and one more time for the Touch.

Touch is two controllers and another camera. 120 is just not remotely likely.

Sony now has the ball, convenient for them to know how much the direct competition to PSVR will cost. I can see them going for around PS4 price, not higher. That's already pricey for a thing that most people haven't even tried yet. And something that has such a different effect on people, from being completely immersed, all the way to not being able to wear the thing at all (because of nausea, etc).

I am interested in getting PSVR, but I can't really see it overtaking my gaming, it would me more like a thing to jump into every now and then, and then it's back to the traditional stuff. I'm not really ready to throw in more than I bought my console for, to get that experience.

As for Oculus and Vive, I think it's going to be rough. Probably for Sony as well.

@fisk0: Only ONE USB 2.0(!) Port???
I didn't know that. Interesting.... I'm gonna investigate this.

Oculus touch looks to be so much superior to these wand things, for one it's got actual analog sticks and a fair number of buttons...

The more I see about the vive the more it feels like it's way more geared towards bs gimmicky "hey you can get up and walk around, now pet the virtual tiger named skittles" sort of stuff that get boring after 10 min while occulus seems to be more for real games that you just sit down and fucking play, like you're supposed to...

@kill_la_kill: I've been messing around with a Gear VR with my S6 Edge+ and it's genuinely pretty cool. The visual quality is great. Of course its always going to be underpowered compared to a PC/console but for what it is, it's ace. To be honest I think the screen quality was better than the devkit Vive I tried, though not sure if it's been upgraded since then.

lol

@killergoalie: no confirmation that was my assumption based on standard well produced video game controller cost and the fact that there are two of them, probably will be bundled together for less than that in a two pack.

I'll jump in when the technology gets to the point where I can kill a person with my bare hands.

@cale: You don't need VR for that. You might get in trouble though...

But if you insist on it being in VR, we're pretty much already there thanks to the newest LeapMotion

That phone announcement immediately reminds me that the Nokia N-Gage existed.

Even if the price wasn't a factor, I don't have the room for this kind of setup.

WHO IS THIS FOR?!

Waiting the actual pre-order opening up for some more details, i hope Valve and HTC do actually "launch world wide" and don't charge people outside of NA extra like Oculus tries. If that's the case then the Vive kit could end up just as "expensive" as the Oculus, at least in Europe.

i mean- if your main critique is that these things shouldn't be this expensive- i'm not sure what to tell you. this early in the game, i'm willing to bet it's almost entirely R&D and material costs. i think neither facebook nor valve/htc expect to be lining their pockets with the sales of these things- so it is what it is. don't buy first gen anything- you'll always pay more.

it's brand new tech- look at the price of 3D printers when they first came to consumer market vs. now. if you can manage to wait even one year from gen 1 retail release- at the bare minimum gpu's should be cheaper. but that said- even fully mature high-tech product lines aren't that cheap- a base model iphone 6s costs $649 unlocked.

you have to remember- facebook, valve/htc, and sony all WANT you to buy these things. the pricing such as it is now tells me they don't expect people for whom a $400 purchase is substantial to buy these things anyway!

and in terms of over-marketing- i dunno, aside from the occasional print article on palmer- where else have you seen VR companies pushing headsets on consumers? it's not like they were running superbowl ads.

@kanerobot said:

You can play games at your desk with the Vive too (Elite: Frontier is the most recent example that comes to mind). It also supports using different controllers, and the Lighthouse tracking system can be used with any other hardware that allows it (they're open source). It's all about what the developers choose for their game.

Now its Sony's turn to unveil their VR device and hopefully they do it on a press conference.

@rvancetal: Yeah as someone else stated, It's two controllers and an additional lighthouse camera, plus shipping again. So unless Facebook/Rift eat the cost of shipping, the camera and parts of the controllers 120 would be overly optimistic price rise... but stranger things have happened.

I'm curious does this mean this E3 it's going be VR VR VR, like several years ago with 3D?

The way i look at it if its a similar price to a decent monitor then its a fair price. 799$ seems like a fair price.

Your comparison of this to functional products like 3D printers is unreasonable given that 3D printers are not novelties. I considered at first the idea that when GPS came into the market, it took a while for it to become cheap enough to be mainstream. Then I realized that it had to because more people were going to buy it since it is a necessary item. No one needs a 3D head display and nothing we have currently (software and hardware) is conducive to a future where virtual reality would be mainstream. It is going to take both hardware and software developers forging a complete new era of technology in order for this to be successful. How would that work? What would it take to make people need a virtual headgear? That is probably where these companies should be focusing their energies, not on the lay gamer.

I read the second game as Fantastic Contraception, which after dropping 800+ for this gizmo might just be true. :X

I know HTC isn't doing so well recently as a company but $799 seems rather low for a multi-million dollar corporation.

i really don't think it's that unreasonable at all- both are examples of new tech that were/are prohibitively expensive when they first came to market. 3D printers didn't start as something a hobbyist would purchase- they were geared to professionals where rapid prototyping has a real benefit. now a makerbot can be had for $900- that's still damn expensive to most, but for hobbyists that's not such a big ask (i play guitar as an example, and routinely spend as much on gear such as amps, instruments and effects).

i take your point about the non-gaming applications of VR- but i think part of the reason you don't hear about it is because most of the VR info you absorb is likely filtered through a gaming website. think about the applications for architecture firms, design, scientific research. i mean even will smith left tested.com to specifically develop a new communications platform for VR.

don't get me wrong- asking gamers for $800 (no pc hardware included) is a lot- but just because it's available to any consumer doesn't mean it's their run at the mainstream. this is their first time putting it up for sale- we'll have to see how the market and producers respond.

Finally got to try the full underwater ship/Job Simulator/Paint/Portal 2 demo of this thing. After being sold on VR just with DK1, the Vive demo blew me away. The most unexpected thing about VR is the sense of scale.

For as much of a drug fix as I need a VR rig for, $800 plus the $300 my PC would need for upgrades is a rough sell.

I really wanted to be an early adopter but when Oculus announced that ridiculous price I reluctantly abandoned the idea.

Now I'm coming round to the fact that it's actually a good thing and that these excessive pricepoints has essentially saved me from myself. Because of course, the sensible thing that should be done is to wait until all three are released, assessments have been made as to their relative strengths and weaknesses, and they can all be tried out in a store somewhere, rather than succumbing to the hype and blind-buying the first one to come out.

I used a final (or damned near it) Oculus Rift at the Toronto Auto Show on Thursday. Hugely impressive, but the colour depth and resolution were such that I would stil prefer to use a TV. You can get a really good TV for over 1000 CAD. If I were in the market, the added cost of the HTC would be worth it to me if it meant those issues were resolved.

But I'm not.

@jasondaplock: I for one welcome our new augmented meta-humans.

(stay offa my property)

ho hoooo, I get it

Also once these are all out Dan needs to invite his dad over to test them out.

Oh, and come to mention it, that hype! Seriously, the way some of it's promoters over-sell this experience if I'm not jizzing in my pants uncontrollably within a minute of putting on the headset I'm going to start feeling a little under-whelmed. [obligatory porn joke]

Still no software worth any of these prices. $800 with Job Simulator and Fantastic Contraption.... Ya, no thanks. Maybe in a year or two there will be games worth the price point.

Instead of learning anything from previous console launches, platform developers continuously release with tech demo's.

I swear it looks like Playstation VR paired with No Man's Sky Exclusive at launch to be the only serious contender. Doesn't matter if Playstation VR is inferior. With the Hype around No Man's Sky paired with VR Hype, Sony has the right tools. Just a matter if they execute.

Bob: Hey man my gfx card can push 3 trillion polygons, and my VR Headset has two 4k displays, running at 120fps!

Joe: Oh really! What games are you playing?

Bob: Oh that Third Person Platformer from Insominac, and that Game that sarcastically simulates office work!

Joe: Oh.. How much did that cost you again?

Bob: Like $2000.

Joe: Oh.. Hey you wanna go play Dark Souls 3 on my $350 PS4?

Bob: Ya, probably.

@zabant: Most houses already have (multiple) TV's in them, in many cases, big TV's. Hardly any programming is in 4K yet so splurging on a 4K TV might not be the way to go for everybody. The entry cost of VR is a lot of money for those living paycheck to paycheck but for people who actually have disposable income, ya gotta waste it somewhere. VR seems no more wasteful than hookers n blow, or whatever floats your boat.

Remember, unlike the Oculus CV1 coming out soon, the Vive actually comes with the positional / rotation hand-tracking controllers... Oculus has not announced a price or launch date for their "Touch" controllers. That is a big distinction worth noting here.

Also, I encourage everyone to look at specifications for these devices such as refresh rate (75hz? 90hz? 120hz? etc.), tracking latency, screen resolution (720p? 1440p? 2K? etc.) field of view (how far can you see to each direction of your eyes using just peripheral vision in the headset), and screen type (OLED / LCD / etc.) before jumping on to ANY VR bandwagon, and dumping on a competitor.

I would like to also point out that if any VR headset that hasn't announced their price does actually turn out to be cheaper than any of the other devices coming out, don't assume that the cheaper one is going to be just as pleasant to use as one of the more expensive headsets. Note that Sony has already announced that their headset is only going to be 1080p, which sounds good for a television, but speaking from experience, anything less than 1440p on a VR display makes pretty much all text smaller than a logo on a giant billboard unreadable. And even 1440p isn't super clear.

It probably won't be until we get at least ultra high pixel density 4K VR displays when you'll be able to have something like a "virtual monitor" have things displayed on it look just as crisp as your 27" 1080p display does sitting at your desktop.

In any case, I can almost guarantee that most of the companies selling VR are doing so around "at-cost" for these things because this is such a new market and main-stream consumers are not sure about VR in general - especially when it costs this much to invest in developing hardware and software for it. So you can claim these things are too expensive all you want, but none of these guys are price gouging. The display tech alone in most of these devices is absolute bleeding edge.

@sketchy: Totally agree. I hadn't thought of that. The cost and reward of a 4k tv is ridiculous if you've looked into it (the content, the drop off distance for visible pixels, etc).

What gets me is that you're paying for an iteration of technology and quality, just like 3D tvs and RealD theaters. Just like an iphone 5 vs 6, 5.1 vs 7.1 vs atmos surround, new maps in Destiny. The marketing hype machines try to sell you that these are the greatest new things, So Fast, So Immersive, etc

Using the Vive isn't just a totally new technology, it's the first time in probably a decade that the quality of the device not only met, but continues to exceed the hype for me. And I've been totally jaded by marketing bullshit for so long, this came as a complete surprise to me.

I'm guessing that most people on GiantBomb, IGN, NeoGaf etc are totally jaded too, but for me, this is the most fucking exciting thing in video games I've seen since Mario 64 came out.

I can say with confidence that it does so surprisingly well. ;)

No it's not a mobile GTX 980Ti, but Vulkan is impressive and the S7 is liquid cooled. :D

Now, you should know that there isn't any positional tracking for Gear VR at the moment, so you won't be able to have the freedom to move around in positional space as you would with one of the dedicated headsets (rotation works perfect though)... but for the cost of "free" I guarantee you won't find a better headset with the level of tech a Gear VR headset has.

And before anyone says anything - No, Google Cardboard is no comparison.

Even if you discount the fact there's a full ecosystem for the Gear VR already - an Oculus store that lets you download and buy stuff, and that the GVR is way more comfortable to wear, has built-in controls and adjustable focus, the GVR's on-board sensors make tracking way more accurate and drift-free, the latency is way lower than any Cardboard headset can be and less barf-inducing as a result. /shill

Glad to hear you're enjoying it!