HTC Confirms Vive Pre-Orders Start February 29

[kcarbotte]

HTC's JB McRee confirmed to Tom's Hardware that the pre-order date for the Vive VR HMD is, in fact, February 29 of this year.

HTC Confirms Vive Pre-Orders Start February 29 : Read more

 

[dark_lord69]

ugh... Since Oculus is $599 I'm guessing this one won't be any cheaper. Eager to see the final price and what comes with...
For now I'm just gonna focus on upgrading my PC.

 

[dstarr3]

I feel like this might land around the $400 mark, just to undercut the Rift. But this is still going to be a niche market for a while now, and it's still the first generation of these releases, so you'll still have to pay the Early Adopter fees if you want it now.

 

[jasonelmore]

hope the price comes out before the actual pre-order day.. Like at least 2-3 days before so i know if i need to bother staying up all night.

 

[Gurbo]

I feel like this might land around the $400 mark, just to undercut the Rift. But this is still going to be a niche market for a while now, and it's still the first generation of these releases, so you'll still have to pay the Early Adopter fees if you want it now.

The last thing I had heard is that they said it would be more expensive than the Rift... We'll see, but if they place it at a lower price, I don't expect it to be much lower.

 

[killerchickens]

I feel like this might land around the $400 mark, just to undercut the Rift. But this is still going to be a niche market for a while now, and it's still the first generation of these releases, so you'll still have to pay the Early Adopter fees if you want it now.

Rift is being sold at cost, no way vive will be cheaper.

 

[kcarbotte]

ugh... Since Oculus is $599 I'm guessing this one won't be any cheaper. Eager to see the final price and what comes with...
For now I'm just gonna focus on upgrading my PC.

My educated guess would say that HTC will come in significantly higher.
I don't know one way or another, but there are several key factors that lead me to believe this.

A) HTC has always said it wants to make the most premium VR experience. It has never made claims of making a more affordable solution.
B) HTC Vive includes the headset, the lighthouse trackers for room scale VR and the two wand controllers to track your hands.
The headset is on par with Oculus Rift, from what I can tell, and it uses the same size and dimension screens. The controllers will add significant cost and the lighthouse trackers aren't going to be a free to produce either. All of these things will add to the cost of the package.
C) HTC doesn't have a company like Facebook behind it that can afford to take a loss of the start. The company has been losing market share for years and its stock value plummetted in the last year. The Vive will have to be sold at a profit in order for HTC to survive. Oculus has said it is selling the Rift at cost. I may be wrong about that, Valve does have deep pockets, but I don't forsee Valve subsidizing hardware costs at this stage.

It's not my place to speculate on a price, but I don't see it being a cheaper package than what Oculus has released.

 

[alidan]

I feel like this might land around the $400 mark, just to undercut the Rift. But this is still going to be a niche market for a while now, and it's still the first generation of these releases, so you'll still have to pay the Early Adopter fees if you want it now.

Rift is being sold at cost, no way vive will be cheaper.

ill believe that when i see a tear down.

I feel like this might land around the $400 mark, just to undercut the Rift. But this is still going to be a niche market for a while now, and it's still the first generation of these releases, so you'll still have to pay the Early Adopter fees if you want it now.

The last thing I had heard is that they said it would be more expensive than the Rift... We'll see, but if they place it at a lower price, I don't expect it to be much lower.

it was said it would be more expensive before rift released at 600$

 

[falchard]

I think if you are a purchaser of large monitors, a price over $500 wouldn't be a stretch.

 

[problematiq]

I'm buying it just because i don't like Oculus.
Now to convince the wife...

 

[Tom GR]

From what i can see they waited till the preorders of ocul.
so im guessing this will be just enough to undercut.

$549? 579? 589?

Also, the video card required to power this starts at like 500 doesnt it?
and a pc that wouldnt bottleneck that would cost 1500?

The entry to VR for any platform is going to be costly.

I read a news release from nVidia saying something like only 30% of
computers in existence can actually push the oculus.
how many of those are actual gaming machines use for gaming. 50%?

 

[Tom GR]

I feel like this might land around the $400 mark, just to undercut the Rift. But this is still going to be a niche market for a while now, and it's still the first generation of these releases, so you'll still have to pay the Early Adopter fees if you want it now.

Rift is being sold at cost, no way vive will be cheaper.

Dont believe everything you read. at cost for 600? no; do a little actual research of at cost tech items
the Devkits were being sold above cost to help pay, they said this, and those were what, 300?

 

[kcarbotte]

I feel like this might land around the $400 mark, just to undercut the Rift. But this is still going to be a niche market for a while now, and it's still the first generation of these releases, so you'll still have to pay the Early Adopter fees if you want it now.

Rift is being sold at cost, no way vive will be cheaper.

Dont believe everything you read. at cost for 600? no; do a little actual research of at cost tech items
the Devkits were being sold above cost to help pay, they said this, and those were what, 300?

Oculus has repeatedly said they are selling the Rift at cost.

The quality of the components in the Dev kits compared to the final released product are night and day. There's really no comparison.
The retail rift feels like a very high quality product. The DK2 is clunky, heavy, and not really built all that well.


I wouldn't count on the Vive being even the same price as the Rift. It will be a more expensive product because it offers much more.

 

[cryoburner]

The last thing I had heard is that they said it would be more expensive than the Rift... We'll see, but if they place it at a lower price, I don't expect it to be much lower.

It was supposed to be more expensive than the Rift when Oculus was still saying that their consumer headset was planned to be somewhere in the $300 to $400 range. Of course, I don't expect the price to be much lower, if at all, but an equal or lower price does seem possible in light of the Rift's inflated one. A lower price would definitely help establish the HTC Vive as a leading contender in VR, and gain their brand a lot of good will, even if units are hard to come by in the months following launch. I agree that it probably won't be anywhere near $400 though, considering it's a more complete VR package than the Rift, but it could easily be under $600.

Oculus has repeatedly said they are selling the Rift at cost.

Oculus has said a lot of things, and there's ways to define "cost" that go beyond the actual costs to build the finished product. Perhaps they are including all the R&D costs, and the costs of shipping out "free" consumer units to early backers and developers. Perhaps they are including the costs of a probable multi-million dollar advertising campaign to follow the headset's launch. Maybe they're even including the estimated retail value of two newly-released games and an Xbox One controller that you probably could do without, despite them actually getting them in bulk for a fraction of the cost. When the consumer headsets ship, we'll likely see teardowns placing the cost of materials at not much more than $300 or so.

 

[kcarbotte]

The last thing I had heard is that they said it would be more expensive than the Rift... We'll see, but if they place it at a lower price, I don't expect it to be much lower.

It was supposed to be more expensive than the Rift when Oculus was still saying that their consumer headset was planned to be somewhere in the $300 to $400 range. Of course, I don't expect the price to be much lower, if at all, but an equal or lower price does seem possible in light of the Rift's inflated one. A lower price would definitely help establish the HTC Vive as a leading contender in VR, and gain their brand a lot of good will, even if units are hard to come by in the months following launch. I agree that it probably won't be anywhere near $400 though, considering it's a more complete VR package than the Rift, but it could easily be under $600.

Oculus has repeatedly said they are selling the Rift at cost.

Oculus has said a lot of things, and there's ways to define "cost" that go beyond the actual costs to build the finished product. Perhaps they are including all the R&D costs, and the costs of shipping out "free" consumer units to early backers and developers. Perhaps they are including the costs of a probable multi-million dollar advertising campaign to follow the headset's launch. Maybe they're even including the estimated retail value of two newly-released games and an Xbox One controller that you probably could do without, despite them actually getting them in bulk for a fraction of the cost. When the consumer headsets ship, we'll likely see teardowns placing the cost of materials at not much more than $300 or so.

Don't get your hopes up.

The Vive has the same displays as the Rift.
It includes a front facing camera.
Includes the wand controllers.
includes the lighthouse sensors.

The most important thing to remember though, is HTC has always said they are going for the most premium experience. The company has never once said Vive would be cheaper, or the same price as the Rift. People assume it will be cheaper because Valve is behind the project, but there's no reason at all to think that would be the case.

HTC has pivoted its business towards VR. The company will need to make a handsome profit on the hardware. It won't be making money on software like console makers do to subsidize selling the hardware at a loss.

 

[Phillip]

Please... please let this work with X-Plane!

 

[Phillip]

Please... please let this work with X-Plane!