Last time we heard HTC Vive VR was supposed to launch in Q1 2016 and April is obviously a slip to another quarter. The company in the meantime plans to make 7000 developers units available for purchase in order to help developers create more content for this VR kit. Our industry friends believe that it will be quite pricy as the first generation of retail product aims the people who spend $499 and more on the GPU. One can only imagine HTC Vive VR won't be less than that if not more.
Fudzilla has been playing with the glasses and as you can read, we liked it. From what we believe this is much better experience compared to the one we had with Oculus CV1. Facebook and Oculus are probably coocking a new version that might give HTC run for its money.
HTC strongly believes that working closer with developers might be a key to success. The company wants to work with innovative developers to create content that spans gaming, entertainment, medical, education and retail.
Writing in its company blog, HTC said that it will be starting next year by making an additional 7,000 units available to developers, followed by commercial availability in April 2016.
An email from the SteamVR team details a new HTC Vive developer edition premiering at CES in January with a new industrial design that is said not to impact development.
There will be a content showcase in Seattle where some developers will show experiences they have been working on to press and public. This event will be followed by additional showcases throughout the first quarter of the year as well as showings at SXSW and GDC.
HTC wants to organise a developer event is being held in Beijing in December 17 to 18.
It plans to show the glasses at a few popular events including Sundance Film Festival, SXSW, GDC and MWC while expanding our demo tours. However date is an admission that HTC can’t make its Valve-powered headset ready in 2015, something we had kind of figured out.
The new timeline also puts the release behind that of Oculus, although the theory is that the systems are different enough for that not to be a problem. Vive is built for room-scale VR with hand-tracked controllers from the moment it arrives while the Oculus Rift will add hand-tracked controllers with the freedom to move more freely around a room in the first half of the year.
The Rift will arrive for consumers in the first few months of the year, Vive will arrive sometime around April and then Oculus will ready for phase 2 with the Oculus Touch controllers shipping to more closely match the more capable feature set of the Vive.
