HTC Vive preorders will begin on Feb. 29, shipping in April
HTC CEO Cher Wang has some announcements for virtual reality fans who can’t wait to see their own HTC Vive virtual reality headset. It’s time to get the money ready as preorders are already starting on Feb. 29 for the HTC Vive. This marks the first retail-ready competition for the Oculus Rift in virtual reality headset preorders.
The official preorder date for HTC Vive was confirmed by Wang in an interview with The Telegraph. Wang didn’t say anything about the price of the HTC Vive and it seems that the HTC Vive will be following the same approach for price announcement. In the first week of January this year, Oculus also announced the price of Oculus Rift on Jan. 6 when the preorders began.
The HTC Vive is coming as a result of a partnership between HTC and Valve. Valve is already a popular name in PC games via Steam. Last spring, the partnership revealed the news that the companies were working together to bring a virtual reality hardware called HTC Vive. The companies also announced that HTC will be shipped in April 2016.
HTC Vive will be bundled with a touch controller that lets the users experience virtual reality with the movements of their hands. With room-scaling in HTC Vive, users can walk around a room without the fear of crashing into walls. HTC Vive’s competitor Oculus also has same kind of controller but the device was not released with the Rift headset due to a delay.
HTC has certainly struggled in the crowded Android OEM phone market in recent years, and when the big companies started entering into virtual reality— with the likes of PlayStation VR maker Sony, Facebook-owned Oculus, Google with Cardboard and Samsung with its Gear VR— there were still very few players at this early stage, making it a relatively challenging ground for HTC to play in.
“Yes, smartphones are important, but to create a natural extension to other connected devices like wearables and virtual reality is more important," said Wang in the interview.
In CES 2016, HTC also introduced VIVE Pre, the second generation developer kit. The new kit showcased some significant changes from the first version which was launched at the Mobile World Congress last year.
The price of HTC Vive still remains a secret and fans are waiting for the official announcement about the final price. Recently, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey announced the price of Rift headset and the company faced strong reactions from the virtual reality fans. Luckey took Twitter to apologize for the high price of Rift headset but he defended the price saying “Rift is obscenely cheap for what it is.”
