HTC Vive Pre-Orders Won’t Ship To Australia Until May

HTC Vive pre-orders are finally live! And if you want to know exactly how much it costs and when you’ll get it, here’s your answer.

The final answer: US$817.27 to Australia, with an estimated shipping cost of US$110. That’s US$899 once 10% GST is added, bringing the total package as of this morning (before the markets opened) to $1413.46.

For those wanting confirmation on the currency — because some might remember the lack of clarity around the Rift when pre-orders for that opened — here’s shots from the checkout pages on the Vive store and Paypal.


Note that the PayPal shot was from really early on when you could still get your Vive shipped in April. That’s not the case anymore. If you try and order a headset to Australia or New Zealand now, you’ll be told that “pre-orders will start shipping May 2016”. Those buying in the United States at the time of writing will get their headsets in April, though.

If you were considering picking up a Vive as well, here’s the recommended specs from the site. The need for only one USB 2.0 or greater port is interesting.

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce® GTX 970 / AMD Radeon™ R9 290 equivalent or greater
CPU: Intel® i5-4590 / AMD FX 8350 equivalent or greater
RAM: 4GB+
Video Output: HDMI 1.4 or DisplayPort 1.2 or newer
USB Port: 1x USB 2.0 or greater port
Operating System: Windows 7 SP1 or newer

For our New Zealand friends: the cost at checkout is US$825.22 ex-GST, with an estimated shipping cost of US$120. Factor in the tax (US$949 for Kiwis) and you get a rather unpleasant figure of NZ$1620.31 at the time of writing. Ouch.

And just to make sure we’re all on the same page, the terms and conditions linked say that prices quoted on the HTC store are “exclusive of VAT and any other tax or duty which (where applicable) must be added to the price payable”. Section 4.4, 4.4.1 and 4.4.2, if you want to read in full.

So for those playing along from yesterday, that would mean two things. One: I was misinformed yesterday in stating that the cost of shipping was included. As promised, I’m sorry and I’ll be taking floggings all day in the comments section for those interested.

Secondly, credit/debit cards will be charged “on dispatch of the Product or commencement of Services” according to the T&C’s. The store page also says that credit card users “will be validated on submission and authorised shortly before shipments start”. The payment will be fully settled once shipping confirmation has been sent out. PayPal customers will get charged as soon as they receive their order confirmation.

So for the last time in a while: now that we know the cost down to the dollar, who’s still interested in the Vive? It’ll be interesting to see what the change in results are between this poll and the previous one, now that prices are confirmed.


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