It’s time for all of the VR head-mounted displays to start strutting their stuff. It’s 2016, the year of virtual reality. Samsung already has an affordable HMD on the market, Oculus VR spit on the proletariat with its $600 Rift that requires a super high-end PC to operate, and PlayStation VR is quietly promoting itself by boasting over a hundred games in development and more modest hardware (which will be more modestly priced).
Now we’re hearing from HTC, a company already familiar to most in the smartphone market. Speaking to The Telegraph, HTC chief executive Cher Wang stated that “…smartphones are important, but to create a natrual extension to other connected devices like wearables and virtual reality is more important.” HTC’s head-mounted device is called “Vive,” and it’s scheduled to hit the market in April for a price yet to be revealed. Pre-orders for the Vive will begin on February 29, and we obviously expect disclosure in regard to pricing some time before then. HTC has been working with Valve to produce some promising demos and hopefully garner the support of the gaming community. We’ll see if the Vive presents itself as an affordable alternative to the Oculus Rift for PC gamers eager to step forward into the new frontier of gaming that is virtual reality.
Source: The Telegraph