The first real competitor for the Oculus Rift is preparing itself for the commercial release of their VR Headset. The HTC Vive, made in collaboration with Valve, will be available for preorder tomorrow at 10 AM, with orders being shipped to consumers on early April. The kit will include the headset, 2 wireless controllers, a 360 degree tracking device that will track your movements in the room you set up your kit in. If you've been having dreams of plugging in and never checking out (Hotel California style!) you will be one step closer to that goal: the HTC Vive has integrated phone functionality, so you don't have to stop what you're doing when your loved ones give you a call or text to see where you've gone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mxDQycSyDg The kit will come bundled with several games. Job Simulator, a joke game where you play a robot in an office as you do mundane, but humorous tasks. Fantastic Contraption has you merrily prance around an island in the sky as you build vehicles and, well, contraptions that respond to physics.
The cost for the headset, the sensors and the controllers is a bit more expensive than the Oculus: for the complete experience you will have to shell out a hefty $799. Do note that because of the sensors that read the room and the games that take advantage of that functionality you'd have to designate an entire room as your VR-space. While the Oculus Rift is cheaper, it does not come with room sensors like the HTC Vive does and the promised motion controllers aren't coming to the Rift until later this year.
If you want to know exactly when you can throw your money at the screen, you can check out the countdown on their official website.
Update
In an update post today, HTC explained that the Vive will also be coming with the Google Tilt Brush to preorders.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdbSk7X7oDU Additionally they provided some updated information on how the preorder situation will work. For credit card preorders a hold will be placed on your card at the time of preorder until later - likely the time of shipping which will be April 5th. Paypal transactions will be charged at the time of preorder.
There was also a reveal of the international prices which are available on their newest blog post. A few stand outs are that Canada will be $1149 CAD, Australia $899 US, UK £689 and the rest of Europe will be €899.
Quick Take
Even though the price is pretty daunting, it's still cutting-edge tech and that's never cheap. The design of the headset is incredibly sleek and futuristic, and the inclusion of the room sensors opens up a whole new world of gameplay abilities. Now if they only bundled in a way to shun my every day responsibilities then that would be great.
