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HTC Vive is $799, ships early April 2016

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Save us, Apple.

This is the saviour of VR [in non-mobile mass market space]
1833066_0.jpg
 
No need for a killer app, someone else will make them, says Valve.

Fantastic Contraption, Budget Cuts, Cloudlands: VR Minigolf, Hover Junkers, Job Simulator, Modbox, Tilt Brush, A Legend of Luca, Arizona Sunshine, they all look interesting to me. At least considering it's been less than a year since the Vive was first announced.

And on top of this there are the headset agnostic titles, like racing and space sims.

Meanwhile Facebook / Oculus is funding VR games left and right to get the industry kickstarted.
But exclusives are bad, right?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

What are your most anticipated Oculus titles?
 
People keep saying this, but all I hear is "because Valve". What technically makes this product better than the Rift? Just the whole room walking thing?

The HMD itself is probably no better than the Rift. Advantages of Vive include Lighthouse tracking allowing for greatly reduced occlusion, and only requires a power source rather than a PC connection as with camera tracking solutions. 2 motion controller are provided. Oculus touch will need to be bought separately and likely will be north of $150 at the very least (two Oculus Touch, Camera etc). There is the ability to play at "room-scale" but can also scale to standing or seated. Importantly this solution allows for full 360 degree tracking of the headset and motion controllers with minimal occlusion since the lighthouses are designed for placement at opposing corners of a play area. Games are being pushed to encourage this freedom of movement both at room-scale and while seated or standing, encouraging games to not be purely a forward facing experience, which both PSVR and Rift are encouraging due to the camera positioning. While you could move a second Rift camera to an opposing end of the room, this isn't what Oculus are pushing as of yet, and if Valve's Alan Yates is to be believed, the design of the controller will not support it well enough.

From experience with Vive DK1, being able to simply spin around and do things in an utterly natural way, feels fantastic and had me in hysterics for most of the time. Far more engaging that DK2, but that is all I have to go on. It feels great to have that freedom without lost tracking and not being purely locked in one direction, not to mention having hand presence is sensational compared to using a standard controller. Chaperone is also pretty amazing. Pretty much a safety system so you know the edges of the room when you approach them (although new headsets use a camera to overlay environment etc). It definitely relieves the anxiety of losing yourself in the virtual world. My first ten minutes or so were very tentative till I started to trust that chaperone knew its shit.
 
Going by some (a lot) of the comments in this thread, I would swear a lot of you expected VR headsets to start at 250 and come with a dozen free games. And a blowjob.
 
Oh shit.

I really hope Sony works the same kind of pricing sorcery they did for the Playstation Vita.

Sell at a loss, Sony. Take the hit for VR.

What the F***. Why? That is not a sustainable strategy. And if they pursue such a strategy, they will have to recoup revenue elsewhere such as necessarily accessories (e.g. Vita memory cards).

People have no idea what they are asking for.
 
The problem is, HTC needs that shit to sell right now to stay afloat. I'm worried Valve has to start from the beginning soon with another manufacturer, and it will set them back.

At least Facebook and Oculus have the funds to continue R&D of the Rift for many, many years without profit, until the tech is affordable enough. Facebook is sitting on vast amounts of money and are not afraid to spend it to make VR happen.

They might not have the best tracking, or the best room scale implementation right now, but they do have a solid product, new R&D departments opening up and a lot of endurance in this race.

Yes, I think Valve should partner with another company now. HTC is in bad shape and it won't help pricing or consumer confidence.
 
What the F***. Why? That is not a sustainable strategy. And if they pursue such a strategy, they will have to recoup revenue elsewhere such as necessarily accessories (e.g. Vita memory cards).

People have no idea what they are asking for.

This happens with every new piece of tech that people aren't used to. Even in GAF people are uniformed, and we're supposed to have more knowledge than the average consumer.
 
Fantastic Contraption, Budget Cuts, Cloudlands: VR Minigolf, Hover Junkers, Job Simulator, Modbox, Tilt Brush, Legend of Luca, Arizona Sunshine, they all look interesting to me. At least considering it's been less than a year since the Vive was first announced.

And on top of this there are the headset agnostic titles, like racing and space sims.



What are your most anticipated Oculus titles?

Those have the same value as mobile games to me, fun to try maybe but nothing that will keep me playing for longer periods, I like my production values.

I'm looking forward to Eve: Valkyrie, The Climb, Edge of Nowhere and Chronos. And simulators like Assetto Corsa, DCS and Project Cars that already support the Rift. But those will have Vive support too eventually.
 
*sigh*

This isn't giving me much hope that PSVR will be in the $300-400 range. I'm bracing for $600 now.
PSVR is using far weaker tech overall. I see no reason it would be more than $399. Though those would probably be some uninspiring profit margins for Sony.

this is a new way for people to watch pornography

lol at vr being DOA

well it's certainly doa for a lot of people.

but it'll for damn sure sell out of their supply in minutes. to absolutely nobody's surprise.

I guess I'll pre-order this one since I missed pre-ordering the Rift on time. I'd rather get one I don't have to wait 6 months to get so I'll have to F5 the pre-order page on the 29th.
 
Did they even confirm European launch? It's dead if they go the XBONE route with launch in US and maybe few more countries initially.

I'd expect the price to be anything from 849€ to 999€. Maybe 799€ if they're getting a big margin (I doubt it) on that $799 price and are willing to subside EU prices.

They do that with phones but everyone has read about how cheap they are to manufacture, it's just so much easier than low margin products like these.

They said "worldwide" launch.
Not to be arrogant, but Europe is a pretty big market to cut off of a "worldwide" launch.

Then again their "World tour" with the Vive, also was basically all US.
 
Like some had said, I really expected it to be a little more expensive than this. Getting high-quality VR tech right now is more like buying a TV set than purchasing something like a game console. It's not going to be mass-market for a while, almost like how it took a long time for HD TVs to become mass-market. Maybe PSVR could make more initial inroads...


And hey, maybe the expense of all this stuff will lead to a revival of the arcade model, or something more like the Korean PC-bang model with people renting time with expensive VR rigs at VR parlors. Who knows?
 
Pretty much all this. PSVR now has a chance to be an extremely huge hit.

PC prices would not and will not make a difference to whether PSVR is "an extremely huge hit" or not. Rift and Vive are not attempting to be "an extremely huge hit" out of the gate. These are two very different markets of consumers with companies taking two very different approaches. Not to mention that these are only two of the PC VR headset vendors of more to come.
 
Considering I'm setting in front of a $799 1440p G-Sync monitor right now, the price isn't as high as I expected.

I will not be getting one at launch though, need to see how the lineup is, see the reviews, etc...

The Vive interests me more than the Rift, even though I'm not super big on the stand up/walk around type of VR.

Really want to play some Elite: Dangerous in it though.
 
Going by some (a lot) of the comments in this thread, I would swear a lot of you expected VR headsets to start at 250 and come with a dozen free games. And a blowjob.

Yeah I'm bemused really, these were always going to be expensive in first consumer versions. And if you have a 'top of the line' PC surely this should be something that is affordable for you.

Then we have people thinking Sony pricing PSVR at lets say $300 - $250 is 'consumer friendly' That's still expensive for a lot of people. Consumers, the vast amount of us are cheapskates.

The old adage still stands, if you have to ask the price of something...
 
Considering I'm setting in front of a $799 1440p G-Sync monitor right now, the price isn't as high as I expected.

I will not be getting one at launch though, need to see how the lineup is, see the reviews, etc...

The Vive interests me more than the Rift, even though I'm not super big on the stand up/walk around type of VR.

Really want to play some Elite: Dangerous in it though.

You don't have to stand and use the Vive right? You can just sit and play a game like Elite Dangerous, yes? Just making sure.
 
Considering I'm setting in front of a $799 1440p G-Sync monitor right now, the price isn't as high as I expected.

People need to realize that VR is a high quality input and output device for their system. Occulus and Vive's prices seem a lot more reasonable when you are already willing to drop $600+ on a good TV/Monitor

e-and all the people crying that its DOA. For a good chunk of time the $800 buck acer/asus 1440p Gsync monitors were sold out. A lot of times supplies would just last a few hours and then be gone for weeks. These were monitors that were extremely expensive and had shit QA problems, it was a gamble buying one. VR is going to do even better at this high end enthusiast market.
 
People need to realize that VR is a high quality input and output device for their system. Occulus and Vive's prices seem a lot more reasonable when you are already willing to drop $600+ on a good TV/Monitor

I'm sitting in front of 600$ monitor and using 980ti to play on it. I'm not dropping 800$ on wii like gimmick ;)
 
I really thought I was going to be a VR early adopter. Now I think I'm waiting a bit.

Probably going to pre-order a Galaxy S7 and get that free Gear VR, so I'll have baby's first VR to hold me over.
 
The HMD itself is probably no better than the Rift. Advantages of Vive include Lighthouse tracking allowing for greatly reduced occlusion, and only requires a power source rather than a PC connection as with camera tracking solutions. 2 motion controller are provided. Oculus touch will need to be bought separately and likely will be north of $150 at the very least (two Oculus Touch, Camera etc). There is the ability to play at "room-scale" but can also scale to standing or seated. Importantly this solution allows for full 360 degree tracking of the headset and motion controllers with minimal occlusion since the lighthouses are designed for placement at opposing corners of a play area. Games are being pushed to encourage this freedom of movement both at room-scale and while seated or standing, encouraging games to not be purely a forward facing experience, which both PSVR and Rift are encouraging due to the camera positioning. While you could move a second Rift camera to an opposing end of the room, this isn't what Oculus are pushing as of yet, and if Valve's Alan Yates is to be believed, the design of the controller will not support it well enough.

From experience with Vive DK1, being able to simply spin around and do things in an utterly natural way, feels fantastic and had me in hysterics for most of the time. Far more engaging that DK2, but that is all I have to go on. It feels great to have that freedom without lost tracking and not being purely locked in one direction, not to mention having hand presence is sensational compared to using a standard controller. Chaperone is also pretty amazing. Pretty much a safety system so you know the edges of the room when you approach them (although new headsets use a camera to overlay environment etc). It definitely relieves the anxiety of losing yourself in the virtual world. My first ten minutes or so were very tentative till I started to trust that chaperone knew its shit.

This is an awesome post and should be read by anyone considering purchasing a VR headset.

Personally I'm going to try and sell my early April Oculus order for $850 so I can afford this sucker.
 
I really wish I could afford this and a gaming PC, I hope PSVR is 399.99 or under. I initially thought it was way too much but after this it actually seems reasonable:(
 
Whelp, so much for VR attracting the mainstream and getting wide adoption.

Maybe in another 20 years or so they'll understand that they need good wide-spread early adopters.

Even if it's not meant for mainstream they are pricing it so high.

The Rift/Vive are both not taking into account the pc/power needed to run it, in order for some "Average joe" to use either they'd need to get the rift or vive + a pc, and you're talking easily 1700+ bucks, which is so far out of the majority of peoples price range for an "entertainment" device it's not even funny.

I hope I'm wrong, I hope it does well, but it really astounds me that neither company thought it'd be smart to get into the mainstream and price it such that the average joe would be able to afford one and get wide-adoption, selling the headset at a loss and making up money on software and other things instead.

Now PSVR is our only hope for actually getting mainstream on board, if it is that expensive then I think VR is going to end up being just like it was before when it came about in the 80's, a cool thing to try and theme parks or places where it can be tried without plopping down all the money and then people slowly lose interest and it goes away.
 
http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/12/8...ural-immersive-vr-sound-times-square-new-york

from what i'm seeing, "binural audio" is just the way the sound is being created. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with the headphones. any cans should do.

"all you need is a left and right channel" and software that supports it.

Yeah I mean, you can already listen to that stuff in Youtube. But generating it dynamically for games (as they now know your head position) is a game changer, there's just nothing more immersive on the audio side for now.

Even the best 7.1 surround setup can't do the same as that virtual barbershop listened with any cheap or expensive headphones. If they can bring the same to games in real time like they say, oh man.
 
This is an awesome post and should be read by anyone considering purchasing a VR headset.

Personally I'm going to try and sell my early April Oculus order for $850 so I can afford this sucker.

you should get a similar experience with oculus touch - with the positive reaction that room scale has gotten, plus the 6 month delay in a availability,oculus will provide a room scale option (or close to) when oculus touch comes out.

I'm considering the same though. But as I'm getting a free OR, that means I can afford to buy a Vive and have both for a short time and try both out to compare. I'm particularly wondering about headset quality and comfort
 
That's exactly on the lowest end of my expected range. Neat!

(Well, actually, it's $1 less than the lower end of my range, but who's counting :P)

I've not seen a wild Durante in the thread yet, but I assume he's pretty happy with the price

I'm on a business trip right now.

The HMD itself is probably no better than the Rift. Advantages of Vive include Lighthouse tracking allowing for greatly reduced occlusion, and only requires a power source rather than a PC connection as with camera tracking solutions. 2 motion controller are provided. Oculus touch will need to be bought separately and likely will be north of $150 at the very least (two Oculus Touch, Camera etc). There is the ability to play at "room-scale" but can also scale to standing or seated. Importantly this solution allows for full 360 degree tracking of the headset and motion controllers with minimal occlusion since the lighthouses are designed for placement at opposing corners of a play area. Games are being pushed to encourage this freedom of movement both at room-scale and while seated or standing, encouraging games to not be purely a forward facing experience, which both PSVR and Rift are encouraging due to the camera positioning. While you could move a second Rift camera to an opposing end of the room, this isn't what Oculus are pushing as of yet, and if Valve's Alan Yates is to be believed, the design of the controller will not support it well enough.

From experience with Vive DK1, being able to simply spin around and do things in an utterly natural way, feels fantastic and had me in hysterics for most of the time. Far more engaging that DK2, but that is all I have to go on. It feels great to have that freedom without lost tracking and not being purely locked in one direction, not to mention having hand presence is sensational compared to using a standard controller. Chaperone is also pretty amazing. Pretty much a safety system so you know the edges of the room when you approach them (although new headsets use a camera to overlay environment etc). It definitely relieves the anxiety of losing yourself in the virtual world. My first ten minutes or so were very tentative till I started to trust that chaperone knew its shit.
All of this is true.
 
Whelp, so much for VR attracting the mainstream and getting wide adoption.

Maybe in another 20 years or so they'll understand that they need good wide-spread early adopters.

Now PSVR is our only hope for actually getting mainstream on board.

There's no need for mainstream support so early on in the lifecycle. Maybe the second or even third revision will be more mainstream once the costs come down.
 
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