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HTC Pins Vive VR Headset Release To April 2016
When the Vive, HTC’s virtual reality partnership with Valve, was announced earlier this year, the company shared ambitious launch plans. The Vive was originally supposed to be on the market already. Clearly that didn’t happen.
Posting on the company’s blog, HTC definitively states that the release has been delayed into 2016. Here’s the complete text of the statement, indicating that we’ll see the Vive in April.
In an effort to clear up speculation and misinformation surrounding the launch of HTC Vive this month we are excited to give the community an update on the status of HTC Vive. We remain committed to delivering the HTC Vive to a broader group of content creators and partners, and remain focused on delivering the very best experience possible for a consumer release.
Since announcing the HTC Vive in March of this year we have focused on developing immersive content, refining both hardware design and user experience, and building relationships with new partners both inside and outside of the gaming industry. In collaboration with Valve, we have been distributing the HTC Vive Developer Kits to developers and content creators, and are continuing to work with many other innovative companies to create content that spans gaming, entertainment, medical, education and retail. This includes hosting a developer conference in Beijing on December 18th, launching the second generation of the HTC Vive Developer Kit at CES and engaging audiences at key events including The Sundance Film Festival, SXSW, GDC and MWC while expanding our demo tours.
We will be starting the new year by making an additional 7,000 units available to developers, followed by commercial availability in April 2016. We are incredibly excited about the future and look forward to sharing more information as we move forward towards launch.
If all continues as planned, this puts Oculus as the likeliest candidate to be first to market. The company says the Rift will be out during first quarter. Sony is projecting to ship PlayStation VR during the first half of 2016.
For more on 2016’s virtual reality revolution, check out our coverage from the January 2016 issue.
[Source: HTC]
Our Take
HTC delayed the Vive into 2016 a couple of months ago, but didn’t do a good job communicating the news. For that reason, there were still many people who reasonably believed that the hardware was still on track for 2015.
Now we know what the approximate release priority will be next year. This helps us start to handicap adoption. However, we’re still missing a key piece of information for all three major competitors: price.
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