HTC has gone to Mobile World Congress to spread the Vive fever to more fans and has revealed the cost of the consumer model along with a few other details. The cost of the Vive comes in right around the dollar amount we were anticipating at $799 and hopefully stays within reach of those who were on the fence between this and the Oculus Rift.
The price is considerably less than someone was charging on eBay to simply pre-order and then ship to the winning bidder after it shipped to the middle man in Italy.
Considering HTC and Valve habe had less time to develop their virtual reality solution it already looks very polished and includes dedicated controllers, an outward facing camera, and now mobile phone integration. The Vive will be well worth the $200 higher cost of that of its competitor, as it is shipping at launch. Aesthetically, the hardware has gone unchanged since the Vive Pre was showcased and art this point only software is being modified.
HTC has added phone services that allows the user to stay inside the virtual environment while communicating over your personal phone. The passthrough is over Bluetooth connection and uses the Vive’s built-in mic and corded headphones (provided by the user).
HTC and Valve have gone to great lengths to provide features focused on keeping the user connected to the outside world as much as they are in the virtual.
HTC also reinforced the Vive will be up for pre-order on February 29th, but gave a specific time for the link to go live. For those in the US, pre-orders will open at 10 AM AT / 7 AM PT (that’s 12 PM GMT for international readers). The expected ship date is April 1st, no joke!
While I haven’t seen an official press release our source says this info was announced at MWC and there was no mention of actual PC specs so we’re still going with the minimum that Vive partners are publishing to be VR ready.
Source: RoadtoVR
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