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HTC Partners With Valve For SteamVR-powered VR Headset, Vive
HTC announced today at Mobile World Congress its virtual reality headset, the Vive, which it is building in collaboration with Valve.
The Vive will have two 1200 x 1080 displays with 90 FPS refresh rates. It will allow full 360 degree viewing and a “full room-scale” experience, which will let users get up and walk around in a 3D space. Gyrosensors, accelerometers, and laser position sensors are being used to to track head movement. HTC will also release a pair of wireless controllers that will work with the Vive.
HTC also announced work with creative partners like HBO, Lionsgate, and Google for non-video games experiences. You can check out a video outlining the Vive below.
Valve recently promised it is bringing lots of technology to show off at GDC, including VR technology and its Steam controller, and HTC reiterated that promise today. A developer edition of the Vive will be available Spring of this year with a retail consumer version planned for this holiday of this year. Pricing details were not announced.
[Source: HTCVR, via The Verge]
Our Take
It's unclear if this is the only VR headset Valve is creating, or if this is more of a Steam Machine-type partnership where Valve is sharing technology with a few manufacturers and HTC just happens to be the first with a major announcement. In any case, however, this is exciting news. HTC's Vive headset has a solid launch window for the end of this year, where Oculus still only has targets. GDC could be home to a number of VR announcements this coming week, but today HTC has the most capable VR headset (thanks to working with Valve) with a tangible launch.
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