Apart from Google Cardboard and the Samsung Gear VR, there aren’t that many commercially available virtual reality headsets out there in the market yet. The Oculus Rift is expected to ship in 2016 and if you were hoping that the HTC Vive would be released before then, you might be disappointed.
According to HTC who announced their presence at the PAX Prime expo, it seems that if you’re looking to get your hands on the HTC Vive this year, you probably can’t and 2016 would be a better bet. This isn’t to say that there won’t be any HTC Vive devices this year, it’s just that it will be limited in quantity and seems to be more targeted towards developers.
HTC was quoted as saying, “HTC will offer the first commercial Vive units via a limited quantity of community and developer systems.” As for everyone else, HTC notes that larger quantities are expected to be made available in Q1 2016, so unless you’re a developer looking to build apps or games for the HTC Vive, you could have a hard time trying to get ahold of one.
That being said, HTC’s decision to roll it out to the masses in 2016 might not be the best idea. Like we said the Oculus Rift is pegged for a 2016 release as well, and last we checked, Sony’s Project Morpheus was also pegged for the first half of 2016, meaning that HTC will have to compete against two other companies for attention and market share.
Filed in . Read more about HTC, HTC Vive, Virtual Reality (VR) and Wearable Tech.