HTC and Valve are now just a few days away from opening pre-orders for their collaborative head-mounted display (HMD), the HTC Vive. Consumers will be able to place their orders on Monday 29th February, with a retail price of $799 USD for the headset. And recently HTC has been commenting on the successful partnership between the two companies.
At an industry conference in New York, Daniel O’Brien, vice president of virtual reality (VR) for HTC said the collaboration was: “a match made in heaven,” reports the Wall Street Journal.
The two firms have been working together for some time, announcing the HMD only in early 2015. Since that point the headset has been sent out to lots of studios who signed up for the initial developer kit, and in January HTC unveiled the latest design, the HTC Vive Pre. This featured a smaller, lighter HMD, and a front facing camera, sleeker motion-tracked controllers and improved base stations for the Lighthouse Room Scale tracking system.
Critics of VR have pointed to the need for powerful PC’s that will be required to run headsets like the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift as a stumbling block but O’Brien doesn’t see this as an issue: “The number of customers that already has a PC that can support a Vive is a very healthy base for us to start.”
He also remarked in an interview about the space required for setting up the Room Scale tracking, saying: “A lot of people misunderstand and think you need this big space or that you have to mount base stations into your wall at a perfect height. But that’s not the case. You just plug it in and have fun.”
After the pre-orders have opened HTC will being shipment of the HTC Vive in early April, so consumers won’t have to wait too long to get their hands on one. VRFocus will continue its coverage of the HTC Vive, reporting back on the latest announcements.
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