You’ve waited, you’ve wondered, and now we have an answer. Mobile phone manufacturer HTC has finally announced how much it’ll cost to acquire their virtual reality collaboration with Valve, and it’s about as pricey as we expected: US$799.
The news broke in the early hours of the morning. A post on HTC’s blog confirmed that the Vive will cost US$799 when pre-orders become available next Monday.
The entire package will come with the two Vive touch controllers and the two wireless Lighthouse* sensor boxes. “Vive will be delivered as a complete kit allowing users to instantly jump into a fully immersive virtual environment using two wireless controllers, 360 degree tracking and room scale movement sensors,” the blog post adds.”
Vive purchasers will receive two games with the bundle: Fantastic Contraption, a game about “building things”, according to one of the creators, and Job Simulator, a game about robots learning what it was like to do a job.
HTC also lists three manufacturers producing PCs and laptops that will be capable of powering the Vive upon release. MSI’s GT72 and GT80 series are supposedly “overclock ready” Intel i7 machines powerful enough for the Vive, while Alienware “provides a range of systems that are tested to ensure an incredible VR experience”.
The only machine specifically recommended with a purchase link at this stage is the HP ENVY Phoenix, a desktop PC that starts at $1700. The starting specifications include 16GB of DDR4-2133 RAM, an i7-6700K Intel Skylake quad core CPU, an R9 390X 8GB GPU from AMD, a solitary 2TB 7200 RPM SATA hard drive, Windows 10, and other accessories. The HTC Vive is not included in the price of the desktop, despite HP’s heavy advertisement for the technology on the landing page.
I’ve reached out to HTC for confirmation of how much the kit will cost locally, as well as what the cost of shipping might be. If any new information comes to light, I’ll keep you updated.
Update (10:13 AM): The Vive’s wireless sensor boxes are called Lighthouse, not Lightroom, my bad.
Comments
68 responses to “The HTC Vive Will Cost US$799, Comes With Two Games”
It ain’t cheap, but then it never was going to be. At least it’s all included in a single sku, the controllers and grid generators are pretty cool.
Now, the shipping…
“No, I’m getting a Rift” 😛
Also, *Lighthouse >.>
Yeah my bad, I put this together first this getting up. I’ll fix it up now.
So about $1,199 AUD? Before shipping…
Can’t justify either this or the Rift right now at those prices. Might contemplate one or the other when I build a new computer at the end of the year / start of next year…
And yet people spend that much money on a monitor?
$1,200+ on a monitor? Who spends that? That would be an ultra-high-end monitor right there. You can pick up excellent gaming monitors for < $600, even cheaper if you don’t want a 27″ monitor.
Yep. At one point, ultrawide monitors were around that price. Top of the line video cards are that much. Hell! Back in the day I spent that much on a 2xCD-ROM and a sound card! Gen-1 tech is always going to cost a bomb.
I seriously think the PS5/XB Stupid name will be VR machines. I seriously think that VR gaming will become as much a thing as gaming is today.
I just don’t think shelling out $1500 Australian for one of these machines is viable for most people. When you can buy a $500 soloution that does it all that’s when VR arrives.
In a way I see it like that $500 steering wheel, they are niche markets. Sure it would be awesome, I’ve fantasised about building a Arcade cabinet to house it with Multiple Monitors set up. But that’s way outside my budget, and I don’t have the space.
It’ll be interesting to see how broadly it’s adopted that’s for sure. I don’t know how many non-teenage boys/ students/ hardcore gamers will want to have something attached to their faces that dampens their other senses for long periods.
I can’t imagine I’ll be able to get home from work, throw on a visor and earphones and completely disconnect from my missus and the other goings-on around the house the way I can with a traditional setup, and I don’t have kids or anything like that. For a lot of people it just won’t be an option.
I get the feeling I’ll be like a drug addiction for some people, you either have to prioritise your VR gaming ahead of everything else or accept that you can’t really play. It’ll be much harder to find that healthy medium.
Ha….
hahaha…..
BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Nope.
What, not even a game about robots learning how to do a job is tempting you?? It’s clearly a masterclass in making learning FUN!
And people where banking on this to be cheaper than the rift.
In Australia they were. And it still might.
Depending on shipping costs.
Yeah if HTC can ship it properly to Australia, instead of whatever round-the-world trip Oculus is doing, it could come in at the same price potentially! (though not likely…)
See now here’s the thing.. I’d prefer to buy this and pay the same price as the Rift. Why? Because this has the capability to let me get up and move around and interact with the world. Not just sit there with wires attached to my head with no real use other than learning around corners.
I’d build a game level based off my room or something, and be able to move about it in a virtual world.
**Australian’s were banking on it being cheaper. We’re still yet to see about that, but it’s still very well possible.
Everyone knew it would carry a much higher RRP in the US, though only $200 USD more is pretty impressive considering it comes with 2x motion sensor controllers, 2x 360 degree tracking and room scale movement sensor lighthouse’s and an additional 2 games.
I guess we’ll need to hold out hope that the Playstation VR might be more reasonably priced. It’ll have lower specs yes, but that should also mean, at least in theory, that it’ll be cheaper.
Yeah but it’ll only work on the PS4 I’m pretty sure… these will work with the PC and a multitude of games over a longer lifespan.
I’m hopeful that someone (if not Sony themselves) will come up with PC drivers for the PS-VR that will make it compatible with anything that the HTC or Oculus can do on PC.
I’m tempted to go Sony because I already have the Move controllers and the camera so it should be a cheaper investment for me just buying the helmet
Yeah they took the shithead approach and used OR’s price as the “industry standard”,instead of becoming the hero and setting an affordable price, which while it would be less profitable, would probably snap up 90% of the market. But alas, shareholders don’t run on long term figures, so they’ve fucked it.
Something costs $10 to make. One business sells them for $50, and sells 100. Second business sells them for $20 and sells 1000. Pretty easy to see whos come out in front.
These should be a loss leader to get your brand dominant, and build brand recognition. Like with HD-DVD vs blu ray, which was “won” as much because every PS3 had a blu ray player as anything else, the brand recognition is so crucial at the start of an industry.
Dont do it for profit, do it for market penetration, and the future profits will come.
That’s a great comparison actually, hd-dvd vs bluray…
Sony could afford to sell the PS3 at an enormous loss initially (reportedly around 30% on the 60 GB model and as much as 50% on the 20 GB model) and continue to sell it at a loss through until mid-2010 because they’re an integrated business and could subsidise that loss against revenue from game royalties and other Sony services sold on the platform.
By contrast HTC are simply a hardware manufacturer and Valve are not charging any sort of royalties or licence fees etc for developers to use their SteamVR framework.
Do you have any particular reason to think that these devices are being sold at enormous profits?
No particular reason at all and I never said that. I’m merely saying that short term losses can carry forward to long term gains and the last time this happened those leader losses paid off big time. It doesnt matter why Sony was able to do it, just that they did it. And ultimately that was why HD DVD is just a memory.
Disagree or not, thats my opinion. These need to get down to something like $200 to survive, anything more and people baulk at buying them. We’re the wrong side of $1000 for these, and as immersive as they are, thats just not going to work.
First gen tech IS fairly expensive, not arguing that. I’m arguing that they shouldnt be looking at profit right now, but getting more consumer awareness.
To put it another way, what the hell is making them so expensive to make? There better be some massive savings able to be made in the very near future, or these go the same way as every other VR experiment has.
Of course it matters why Sony was able to do it, another company in Sony’s position but without Sony’s pockets would not have been able to pursue the same strategy, even if they had wanted to.
You mean a company, like, say, I don’t know…..Facebook?
When is first gen of new tech ever affordable
Maybe get your head out of fantasy land and come back to the real world.
New tech is expensive, its not affordable, most cant afford it.
What makes you think they have a large profit margin?
Jeff Gattis, the executive director for marketing at HTC pretty much stated that the price was jacked up because of demand for VR. I couldn’t find any reports on losses for either HTC or OR dev kits at $300-$350 USD, so they cost at least less to make than that. If they sold for less than the OR they could have taken all of the market, but now they practically hand over business to other VR companies
HTC can’t afford to play hero when it comes to pricing
Wow. So basically bad tech isn’t going to kill VR this time, insane pricing is.
How much did 4k monitors cost initially? This is the bleeding edge of hardware. Of course it’s going to cost a lot!
4k monitors still cost excessive amounts, so it’s not *really* comparable. Add to that, that 4k monitors don’t truly need a major upgrade in videocard (unless wanting to run in native 4k). 4k monitors also provide other uses, whereas VR itself in its current form provides a very limited scope. When you look at something like what MS is doing however, with AR, that shows a lot more promise for the future, though we can bet it’ll cost just as much if not more for its first generation.
Doesn’t stop it costing a lot though 🙂
My point is that the first-gen units ARE going to cost a lot. I’m not sure why people were expecting otherwise, apart from Luckey’s dumb comments early on in the process.
They will get cheaper as the technology gets cheaper. It’s like anything else in that regard.
That’s fair enough 🙂
Lmao. 4k monitors dont really need a major GPU upgrade but VR does?
You realize its easier to run games in the rift/vive than at 4k right?
4k monitors provide the same uses your current mointor does, just with more space.
VR provides new uses you dont currently have.
All your reasons are bad.
So you missed the part where I said to run the game in native 4k? I know people who own 4k monitors who still play in lower resolutions because they don’t have the videocards to run games in native 4k.
Your reading is bad and you should feel bad for replying like a twit. 🙂
“You dont need to upgrade your GPU unless you want to ues your monitor for what it is for” Lmao.
By that logic I dont need a new gpu for VR because I can just use it to watch videos.
What garbage.
So there you go, VR doesnt need upgrades either. According to your absolute shiity reasons.
What on earth… you’re not even making sense.
Running a game in 4k on a 4k monitor is going to tax your GPU incredibly. Running 4k resolution will tax your PC incredibly. If you’re not running a native 4k resolution and running a lower resolution, it will not tax your GPU to the same degree…
You’re either trolling or you’re just missing something here…
Your excuse for not needing to up your gpu for a 4k monitor was that you dont have to play in 4k.
Thats such a garbage excuse.
your logic is flawed… myself like every other person i know who owns a 4k monitor, use it in desktop mode to reduce desktop clutter, and give us more screen real estate… we game in 1440p or 1080p depending on the game. unless you’re running SLI 980TI’s or Titans, you dont really have much hope of running many games in 4k unless they are a few years old… and even then…
Ding ding ding winner.
Isn’t the HoloLens in its current state something like 3k for a single unit?
:O Mother of god…
Well, I guess I’m sitting this one out til they all come down a fair whack lol
Hololens is a product that we will not be seeing any time soon, if at all, so I’m not sure where you may have gotten that price from.
That’s for the dev version rather than any consumer product, sorry.
Hell, I just want to try out Minecraft on it :O That demonstration was incredible.
This is actually reasonable pricing considering its new tech.
Seriously wtf did you expect?
Oh I dunno, sub 1k? Even 900? You know, that area? I never expected 200 bucks lol. But 1200 without shipping, ergh.
Lmao. With our current exchange rate?
So you expected it to be about $650 for a headset, 2 sensors and 2 controllers? Hahahahahahahahah.
For new tech???? Lmao. Use your brain.
Are you capable of *not* sounding like an absolute dick on these boards dude? Every reply to someone… every single reply… wow.
Maybe because I reply to people that make stupid comments, like yourself.
you sir are a tool of the highest order.
Right now the only reason to buy one of these things is to experience VR entertainment. They are limited to a few titles at this stage.
Its not something we have other use case scenarios for. This is very much unlike an expensive monitor/ GPU / smartphone or anything else that also enrich our lives in many other ways.
It also clearly depends on a large install base for game developers to follow. I fail to see good reasoning behind a purchase. The last thing we want is an expensive devise a few of us own.
Even the VITA is considered a failure in this day and age with over 10million units sold. Game devs and publishers think that’s nothing.
so $1k for the VR and $2k for a machine powerful enough to run it.
And in 5 years when the Rift wins, or google VR or apple VR or whichever one only cost an arm, youll be stuck with a $1k paper weight worth $20 on ebay.
yeah the “great” AUD is killing VR in Australia at the moment. $1200 for either HTC or OR + postage puts it out of reach for most as a “that’ll be cool to have” purchase
You can put together a Rift-spec machine for about 1.5k, probably less if you have parts lying around already.
Oh really? 5 year old tech is going to be outdatded and nearly wothless.
Wow you are really smart.
Hey Im thinking of buying a lot of nexus 6ps to then sell in a few years. Can I get your advice on that? Do you expect them to drop in price or rise?
Left testicle for the Vive, right testicle for the PC to run it …
Actuall – you can sell one for $35,000
http://now8news.com/donate-a-testicle-the-payout-for-this-is-35000/
SOLD…. once I’m 60 lol
Shit, they can have mine now.
Why are people saying this is expensive? I’m not rich by any means, I only work part time. The Vive was always expected to be the ‘premium’ product. Plus it has the controllers included. It’s about $99 more than what I hoped for, but pretty much what I expected. The only thing that will truly suck is shipping.
Exactly. The price is pretty reasonable considering it comes with 2x motion sensor controllers, 2x 360 degree tracking and room scale movement sensor lighthouse’s and an additional 2 games.
The Rift’s webcam-like single sensor and xbox controller have nothing on the Vive’s peripherals.
Honestly, I was expecting it to cost $300+ USD more so I jumped the gun and pre-ordered myself an Oculus, but now I’m seriously reconsidering cancelling it to buy a Vive.
Nope. The price for the whole kit and the computer to run it is insane. I’m happy enough with my Track-ir.
As much as I would enjoy having one, it’s still definitely too early to get into VR with any of the current sets. At this point you’re still just paying ridiculous amounts of money to beta test for future versions. I love being on the bleeding edge, but my wallet can only bleed so much.
:sadface:
maybe next year, maybe version 2.
show me a bunch of games I actually want to play working on VR and give me confidence that whatever I buy I’m not buying the VR version of an HD-DVD player to help me justify the price…
I still just want to play DIRT and space ship games in VR. That’s about it. I’ll probably use an xbox controller for both, so no need to spend lots of effort on that…
I was super keen for Star Citizen in VR, but I think that’ll only work when actually flying, so something needs to be done about when not flying, which is pretty ingrained into the game, so that’s probably not going to work. Need a new space game now where you don’t leave the cockpit.
The oculus seems ideal for you. It comes bundled with an Xbox One controller and the game EVE: Valkyrie.
EVE: Valkyrie (formerly EVE:VR) is a space dogfighting game designed for VR tech. It seems like just what you’re looking for.
https://www.evevalkyrie.com/
If it’s still a bit pricey for you but you’re feeling tempted, maybe wait until the PlayStation VR price is released. It’s expected to be between $400-500 USD.
I have a DK2…. cheap on ebay… works good
why would i spend 1500 for just a minor upgrade
Im more excited about the new samsung gear 360 camera for 99US
For all the stuff you get its not too badly priced given the OR is just a headset, camera and controller.
Still this year I will be saving up the best I can for my next 3D Printer which is going to set me back $3500AUD leaving no room for VR…
winning.jpg
Iv been putting $50-$100/w away from some time now. just waiting on that ‘pre-order now motherf***ers!’ button to appear.
6 days 15 hours to go!
I spent $1500 on my 34″ ultrawide. It’s the best purchase I’ve ever made in my life. I also have a top of the line 4K 65″ TV. Some of us aren’t poor and can afford the better things in life.