HTC Pushes The HTC Vive Commercial Launch to April 2016
by Brandon Chester on December 9, 2015 2:05 AM EST
Back in August HTC and Valve announced that the launch of the HTC Vive VR headset would be pushed into Q1 2016, which represented a slight delay from the original planned 2015 launch. While the 2016 launch would represent the time at which the HTC Vive would be widely available for consumers, HTC still planned to get a small number of units into the hands of developers before the end of 2015.
Today it seems that Valve Time has again had an impact on the Vive's launch progress, with HTC announcing that the headset will be further delayed to April 2016. This puts the consumer launch slightly outside the originally projected Q1 2016 launch timeframe, although only by a month at most. Both HTC and Valve deserve credit for being upfront with the delays rather than waiting for Q1 2016 to end before announcing that the launch date has been pushed back.
While the consumer launch of the HTC Vive is going to be later than expected, HTC has announced that they're working to get 7000 additional units into the hands of developers at the start of 2016 so there will be content available for the headset by the time it becomes widely available.
Source: HTC
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wolfemane - Wednesday, December 9, 2015 - link
Sweet! about time one of these devices came to market. I'm pretty excited about it!Shadow7037932 - Wednesday, December 9, 2015 - link
Hopefully, we'll get some good games that properly support VR as well.nathanddrews - Wednesday, December 9, 2015 - link
We'll probably get two, maybe three actual games (not tech demos) that are fun to play and use VR well. Beyond that, it will be the same old games, just repackaged with "VR Edition" plastered on them. I predict the best selling VR game of 2016 to be Candy Crush VR Edition for the Samsung Galaxy Gear VR... that people just play on their everyday screen.Was that too cynical? Sorry, it's early.
Flunk - Wednesday, December 9, 2015 - link
If anything you're not being cynical enough!hansmuff - Thursday, December 10, 2015 - link
Your cynicism is perfectly acceptable. There's so much expense and energy going into VR this time around, plus technology just about caught up with the needs, that I think it can be good.And that means casual players will exactly do what you said, get something like the Gear VR and play shitty phone games/demos. Then declare that VR is a fun gimmick.
Look how high the sysreq's are for Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive and yeah, fresh after release VR has a very steep uphill battle yet. Candy Crush it is! Oh sorry, Candy Crush VR, where you can see your friend's facebook avatar as a 3D background while you play.
webdoctors - Wednesday, December 9, 2015 - link
Its good they're delaying it. If the SW isn't there, the HW is useless. You need the games, movies, apps, websites all properly configured. Delivering a half baked ecosystem won't be doing the sales numbers any favours or justice.A5 - Wednesday, December 9, 2015 - link
Yeah, but you have to ship Gen1 hardware to get people to make the software.jasonelmore - Thursday, December 10, 2015 - link
i dont agree with this.. Steam already has 1500 VR titles, and SIM junkies are buying dev kits off of ebay to get in on the action. Elite Dangerous, Farm Simulator, Euro Truck Simulator, Star Citizen, EVE: Valkyrie, Project Cars, Dirt Rally, VR Porn etc... And with Steam's VR tool, you can map the Headset to virtually any function.. Some are even playing fallout 3 (a older title) on dev kits.This delay will really hurt VIVE because Oculus will be out first. They just threw away a lot of potential sales, and one of the key advantages all the reviewers were talking about.
So Oculus ships Feb or March, and people are gonna buy whatever is available first. Vive will miss out on the early adopter bandwagon and will cost them at least 100,000 units in my estimation.
VIVE does look more promising however, with it's bigger playspace, and Steam's backing. I just wish it's design was more streamlined and didn't have tons of cables sticking out of the top with bare off the shelf connectors.
edzieba - Thursday, December 10, 2015 - link
"Steam already has 1500 VR titles"The VR tag is currently very poorly managed. Most of those are are merely titles or demos that implemented the most basic possible early SDK support when the initial Rift DK1 was released, then never bothered updating it (and are thus now incompatible with all available HMDs) e.g. Strike Suit Zero.
Oculus have also not announced a solid release date other than 'Q1 2016' and Palmer's "Rift launches in a few months ".
Murloc - Thursday, December 10, 2015 - link
throwing away means wasting an opportunity that is achievable.If they're pushing the date that means they can't deliver by that date so I wouldn't qualify it as "throwing away".
Also we have yet to see if Oculus actually gets released in Q1.
Until there is no hard date it's hype-only.