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HTC Vive pricing announced; wallets everywhere heard sobbing

By Salehuddin Bin Husin - on 22 Feb 2016, 10:05am

HTC Vive pricing announced; wallets everywhere heard sobbing

 You get the controllers, the HTC Vive headset and the two wireless cameras as well as two free games, when you buy the HTC Vive.

With the Oculus Rift revealing its pricing a few weeks back, the second headset that's set to launch in the coming months has finally revealed its pricing too.

Of course, with the more advanced nature of the HTC Vive over the Oculus Rift, nobody expected it to be priced similarly to the US$599 Oculus Rift. That expectation was spot on; it's not.

 The HTC Vive will cost US$799 (~$1122).

In case you haven't kept up with VR headset developments, the HTC Vive is a VR headset made in collaboration between Valve and HTC. Like the Oculus Rift, the HTC Vive will only be compatible with PCs.

The US$799 headset will come with its two motion sensing controllers, the HTC Vive headset and two wireless base stations that track the headset for more accurate movement in VR. You also get two VR games free, Job Simulator and Fantastic Contraption.

Improvements have been made to the headset and its accompanying hardware that sets it apart from the development kits. For starters, the headset now has a built-in microphone, which could conceivably be used for communications in multiplayer games. Also, the base station cameras, which were previously wired, are now completely wireless. Valve's also bundling a new program, Vive Phone Services, which lets you take and make calls, view and send messages and check your calendar, all while hooked up to the headset.

With the revelation that the base stations are going wireless, that means apart from the headset itself being wired, everything else (from the controllers to the base stations) is now wireless, a godsend for those who hate clutter.

Here's a reminder of what kind of hardware is needed to run the HTC Vive:

  • GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970, AMD RadeonR9 290 equivalent or better
  • Processor: Intel i5-4590/ AMD 8350 equivalent or better
  • RAM: 4 GB or more
  • Video Output: HDMI 1.4,DisplayPort 1.2 or newer
  • USB Port: 1 x USB 2.0 or better port
  • OS: Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8.1 or later, Windows 10

For those who want the more advanced headset, the HTC Vive preorders open in a week, on Feb 29 at 1700hrs local time. Preorders will be taken on the HTC Vive's website.

Like the Steam machines, the Steam Controller and the Steam Link, it doesn't seem that the HTC Vive will be launching locally so your best bet for snagging the headset is to preorder and then use a freight forwarding service to ship locally if HTC doesn't offer shipping to Singapore.

Source: HTC Vive

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