HTC Vive Pricing Announced.
- Thread starter shadragon
- Start date
Hehe I always steered away from console wars. Now looks like the VR headset wars are starting.
I am gonna get the popcorn, sit back and watch
That is part of the problem - they should be peripherals, not platforms. They should be like TVs - all display the same source material but differentiate themselves in other ways. We're being screwed over a bit again - VHS/Betamax, HDDVD/Bluray, etc, but that's the nature of competition I guess.
Oculus starts shipping in March so, erm, WORSE than Oculus!
I mean: if they really deliver in April the most preorders, not just start... Oculus went to expected delivery in Jun after a couple of hours after starting the orders.
But like i said- we will see, i trust HTC to have more possibilities and production capacity than Oculus. If they manage to do so: another plus, but I'm sceptical also.
Totally agree. Even the motion controllers is going to be the biggest issue for developers. There will be so many different types and full body and running platforms but all will die unless there is some open standard for input.
I doubt HTC are break even or losing money, this is a firm that specializes in kicking out fairly decent hardware cheaply. Oculus stated they were break even, but it doesn't look to me like they have focused on price, more on quality and while they have some talented people on board they don't own a manufacturing business. I'm sure the vive could be smaller and lighter but that would have bumped up the price and is it worth it. On an ED only perspective, the advantages of the vive are mostly lost, both headsets should be great and ED runs well now on the rift in steam, so why would that change?
For me price and space are my biggest issues. I have my PC in my office and that is so full of crap I'm pretty much limited to sit down gaming. I could drag the PC into the living room but even there the coffee table rendered the kinnect mostly useless and makes standing VR limited without rearranging the room for a one off. I've not seen much about vive compatibility with Oculus titles... If you can't play any of the oculus titles then you're limited to the bigger games or waiting for ports/dedicated ones. For me the Rift will give me a better experience at a lower cost, but I'll be re-assessing as soon as I get a bigger house/clear my office I hope it doesn't turn into a war between different headsets, in most respects they're 90% identical, it just depends what's best for you.
For me price and space are my biggest issues. I have my PC in my office and that is so full of crap I'm pretty much limited to sit down gaming. I could drag the PC into the living room but even there the coffee table rendered the kinnect mostly useless and makes standing VR limited without rearranging the room for a one off. I've not seen much about vive compatibility with Oculus titles... If you can't play any of the oculus titles then you're limited to the bigger games or waiting for ports/dedicated ones. For me the Rift will give me a better experience at a lower cost, but I'll be re-assessing as soon as I get a bigger house/clear my office
I hope it doesn't turn into a war between different headsets, in most respects they're 90% identical, it just depends what's best for you.
Im gonna get them both the CV1 and Vive.. they will both have there respective strong points.
I like the style and ergos of the CV1 and the software/demos of the VIVE are cool especially room scale and tiltbrush..
Plus u may be able to do multiplayer in the same space with dual compatible tiltles like ED
I like the style and ergos of the CV1 and the software/demos of the VIVE are cool especially room scale and tiltbrush..
Plus u may be able to do multiplayer in the same space with dual compatible tiltles like ED
The room scale benefits of the VIVE aren't really important to Elite (at this time) so I am sticking with my Rift CV1 preorder.
I did the same thing with my DK2 as I did with my old Diamond Monster 3Dfx card. I paid too much money for it and said "If this sucks even a little bit I am returning it"
Never returned that GPU after trying glQuake - and never got rid of the DK2 - In fact I haven't played Elite on a 2D screen since I got my DK2. Resolution being lower - some pixels - it all just doesn't matter because its so much more immersive.
I did the same thing with my DK2 as I did with my old Diamond Monster 3Dfx card. I paid too much money for it and said "If this sucks even a little bit I am returning it"
Never returned that GPU after trying glQuake - and never got rid of the DK2 - In fact I haven't played Elite on a 2D screen since I got my DK2. Resolution being lower - some pixels - it all just doesn't matter because its so much more immersive.
That's a perfectly viable position. Waiting will probably result in a lower price in time. However, I feel they will keep it at that price for a while to cover set-up costs. All of the marketing (and let's be honest, there's a crapton of it currently) has to be paid for, setting up the assembly lines, paying for R&D, etc. Gabe & Co at Valve didn't do all this for free so their costs will need to be recouped.
Then there is supply and demand. I suspect they will take a page from Apple and keep the supply artificially low to drive demand. Once people see this tech in the real world, a lot of folks will want them. That may drive up third party pricing in the short term. Very hard to predict.
I'm getting a Vive, no doubt about that. I said if it was under a thousand US then I was in. I also backed the FOVE eye tracking VR headset, but that will not be arriving until much, much later. I feel the Vive is the better of those two, but FOVE has an extra year of dev time to tweak and fiddle so I may be proven wrong in time.
DK2 until it breaks, and PlaystationVR for the other stuff (it's bound to be much more affordable - especially if you own the Camera and moves already).
On the other hand, I'd like to see a Vive offer without the sticks.
I think it's great that there's 2 suppliers for VR, and I hope that neither of them "win" this iteration. I want VR to be successful and it wont with only 1 manufacturer. Competition is healthy and I hope that VR stays healthy.
I'm more than willing to see the good sides of both the Vive and the Rift, but I think I might get the Vive this time. The fact that it comes sooner and with controllers, it's more what I'm after. Though, if the CV2 has the touch controls included I'll move over to Oculus next time.
I'm more than willing to see the good sides of both the Vive and the Rift, but I think I might get the Vive this time. The fact that it comes sooner and with controllers, it's more what I'm after. Though, if the CV2 has the touch controls included I'll move over to Oculus next time.
And on the opposite side...
Want built in, detachable, headphones for the convenience (seriously, who can be bothered with headset on, headphones on, headphones off, headset off when it can just be headset on/off?!)
Not interested in walking around, at all.
$200 cheaper, easy choice for me. Won't be ordering a Vive.
Completely agree! Having to run a seperate cable just for the headphones and putting them on your head while trying to manage the hmd becomes a total pain after a while, trust me. ...also, those controllers that come with Vive are completely useless in Elite Dangerous (and warthunder) which is all I really care about. Oculus still winner for me. But glad there is competition.
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I got in a very early Rift CV1 pre-order knowing my VR interest lay only in cockpit experiences: ED and War Thunder (until they broke support). I made the mistake of trying out "Room Scale" stuff at VRLA. Now I MUST have hand controllers and room scale. My original plan was to wait for the Touch to show up and get an extra sensor/camera to set up behind me.
But at $800, I may have to get that Vive.
I should mention, I've tried both the Vive with motion controllers and the Rift CV1 with just the XBox controller. The image quality on the CV1 was better, with far far less Screen Door Effect (if any). The CV1 was much more comfortable than the DK2, far lighter and less bulky. The Vive was closer to the DK2 in weight, but closer to the CV1 in image quality (but with slightly more Screen Door Effect). I found the Vive had slightly larger FOV, which may be why the resolution looked a little worse, since the same number of pixels were stretched over a larger area.
If you have the patience, wait for the 2nd version of the Vive, which will likely come out far sooner then the Rift CV2. Word is this version of the Vive is a "Pioneer" edition, like the original Samsung GearVR.
Here's a video of me using the Vive
[video=youtube;qwynZ1KMB2w]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwynZ1KMB2w[/video]
This video sold me on the Vive
[video=youtube;Q7dVaembmgc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7dVaembmgc[/video]
But at $800, I may have to get that Vive.
I should mention, I've tried both the Vive with motion controllers and the Rift CV1 with just the XBox controller. The image quality on the CV1 was better, with far far less Screen Door Effect (if any). The CV1 was much more comfortable than the DK2, far lighter and less bulky. The Vive was closer to the DK2 in weight, but closer to the CV1 in image quality (but with slightly more Screen Door Effect). I found the Vive had slightly larger FOV, which may be why the resolution looked a little worse, since the same number of pixels were stretched over a larger area.
If you have the patience, wait for the 2nd version of the Vive, which will likely come out far sooner then the Rift CV2. Word is this version of the Vive is a "Pioneer" edition, like the original Samsung GearVR.
Here's a video of me using the Vive
[video=youtube;qwynZ1KMB2w]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwynZ1KMB2w[/video]
This video sold me on the Vive
[video=youtube;Q7dVaembmgc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7dVaembmgc[/video]
My second wife was infinity better than my first. Waiting isn't always a bad thing.Oculus starts shipping in March so, erm, WORSE than Oculus!
Then spend $300 on an OSVR for a DK2 quality headset. Problem solved. If you want the latest quality, then you'll have to pay for it to be an early adopter. Won't be for everyone.
There's a lot to cram into the headsets and a lot of development costs for vendors to pay off. At the end of the day it's about as expensive as the 1st-gen iPhone ($600 with a 2-year contract, for anyone who has forgotten).
They will be eventually. TV broadcasts started with a format war, so did GPUs and sound cards. It took time for the industry to unite around a common standard.
The issue right now is that things need to be tied to the hardware at a very low level, and not everyone agrees on the ideal strategy for the rendering pipeline (Valve is just now adding direct mode to SteamVR, Oculus pulled Extended out months ago). Forcing a standard now would either end up with a design-by-committee standard that makes nobody happy (and might cause VR sickness), or end up with everyone but the controlling company's headset having worse performance (SteamVR supports the Rift, but it's not as fast as native Rift support).
Once the hardware (both HMD and PC) improves so such tight coupling is no longer necessary for good performance, and devs start agreeing on best-practices, then we can start to see a standard that doesn't hurt performance.
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I thought about comparing it to a monitor as well, but it's a poor comparison.
You can play every game you have on that Asus monitor.
How many can you play on the Vive (or CV1 for that matter)?
It's potentially a factor for comparing value, but if you're just comparing price it's a good comparison.
Just like how a lot of people look at a 1440p 144Hz monitor and decide it is/isn't worth the price, people will look at VR HMDs. But just because they're not good value for the majority of consumers doesn't mean they could be made any more cheaply.
Quite true. To be honest, if a Pascal based system can keep ED running in VR with the highest graphics settings, that will be value enough for me to buy a Vive.