reportedly, ValvE's & HTC's Vive will hover around 1500$ price point

[zMeul]

source: http://www.androidauthority.com/htc-vice-price-667174/

It’s no surprise that the HTC Vive was always going to be expensive. In fact, HTC has been upfront about it being a high-end product with a high-end price tag since day one. So the news coming out of Taiwan today that the HTC Vive might be priced as high as $1,500 might not be such a shock to some.

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so, there you have it folks .. the VR's short existence

only thing left is for SONY to come up with a price tag that doesn't scream 1000+$

at these price points, coupled with the fact that you need quite the beastly PC to run it, VR's mass adoption won't happen anytime soon

it will see niche use in some non-gameristic fields, medical, military .. but as a gaming aimed peripheral, it's rather D.O.A.

[don_svetlio]

RiP VR

[HKZeroFive]

Fuck that.

[Nacho Marco Segui]

That's a good price, not like the overpriced Oculus

 

 

 

JK

[Guest]

source: http://www.androidauthority.com/htc-vice-price-667174/

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so, there you have it folks .. the VR's short existence

only thing left is for SONY to come up with a price tag that doesn't scream 1000+$

at these price points, coupled with the fact that you need quite the beastly PC to run it, VR's mass adoption won't happen anytime soon

it will see niche use in some non-gameristic fields, medical, military .. but as a gaming aimed peripheral, it's rather D.O.A.

Doesn't anyone understand that THIS IS A FIRST GEN NEW PRODUCT! Of course it's going to cost a lot. It's like 3D printers, they cost a lot at first, but they are starting to go down in price. It's not meant to be for the masses, and considering the first pre orders sold out, it makes sense..... 

[minibois]

I guess I will wait for gen 2 of all VR headsets (As if I was going to get one anyways LOL)

[silberdrachi]

so, there you have it folks .. the VR's short existence

only thing left is for SONY to come up with a price tag that doesn't scream 1000+$

 

Pretty sure i saw a leak a few months back about the PS4 Morpheus was looking at 1399, ill have to see if i can find it. (EDIT: Cant find it right away, everything im seeing is from 2014. I know it was in a recent article about the Rift's price)

 

Welcome to first gen adoption folks. You get to pay for the R&D that goes in to it and the sunk cost of all the production lines. This is why its so much smarter to wait for the v2 or v3 because you will get all the fixes for the things they find once its in the wild for a while, and by then there should be a decent catalog of games/movies/entertainment for it.

[Guest Kloaked]

I don't think it'll be that much, but it'll definitely be more expensive than the Rift.

 

I saw some people saying "weifjweoir I'll just wait on the Vive" whenever Oculus announced their price.

[zMeul]

Doesn't anyone understand that THIS IS A FIRST GEN NEW PRODUCT! Of course it's going to cost a lot. It's like 3D printers, they cost a lot at first, but they are starting to go down in price. It's not meant to be for the masses, and considering the first pre orders sold out, it makes sense.....

1st gen excuse is absolutely bullcrap

and the comparison to 3D printers .. wow; 3D printers have a wider use than a PC peripheral

when you build something, market it at a general audience and claim mass adoption, then you bloody well price it accordingly

[zMeul]

Pretty sure i saw a leak a few months back about the PS4 Morpheus was looking at 1399, ill have to see if i can find it. (EDIT: Cant find it right away, everything im seeing is from 2014. I know it was in a recent article about the Rift's price)

 

Welcome to first gen adoption folks. You get to pay for the R&D that goes in to it and the sunk cost of all the production lines. This is why its so much smarter to wait for the v2 or v3 because you will get all the fixes for the things they find once its in the wild for a while, and by then there should be a decent catalog of games/movies/entertainment for it.

yes, but it's unclear at this point if that package includes the PS4 too

if it doesn't ... SONY will have a tough time selling it

[captain cactus]

Bwhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

 

 

Oh wait they're serious.

 

Couple this with the fact that you need a computer for this VR stuff that's also in the $1500 range and you have a product that only the really early adopters want while also having no proper game support for another 2 years.

 

All these first-gen VR devices will be completely irrelevant in about a year when gen 2 rolls around and completely kicks gen 1's ass.

[Humbug]

I don't know how true this is but what I do know is that it will expensive. How expensive I don't know. But a niche market will still buy this (and the rift) to get the ball rolling for first gen. There's no point saying RIP virtual reality, it's here to stay and it's not a fad. It won't replace traditional monitors but it will have it's place.

 

At least HTC never promised an entry-level price point. Also this does everything the Rift does and more.

[MrRavens]

Lol dayum. Can't wait for the next iterations of these VR devices.

[GeekJump]

Doesn't anyone understand that THIS IS A FIRST GEN NEW PRODUCT! Of course it's going to cost a lot. It's like 3D printers, they cost a lot at first, but they are starting to go down in price. It's not meant to be for the masses, and considering the first pre orders sold out, it makes sense..... 

 

Yes but unlike 3D printing and the niche market, these companies are aiming for mass consumer products (especially Sony). If the 1st gen are too expensive for the average joe to buy -let alone the need to have a beefy computer-, mass adoption will be crippled.

[dragosudeki]

Doesn't anyone understand that THIS IS A FIRST GEN NEW PRODUCT! Of course it's going to cost a lot. It's like 3D printers, they cost a lot at first, but they are starting to go down in price. It's not meant to be for the masses, and considering the first pre orders sold out, it makes sense..... 

You are misunderstanding why people are upset of the price points. The worst thing that can happen though is a very small amount of people owning the VR headsets. If there is a small amount of users owning it, then developers are less likely to support it. Perfect example would be Windows phone, where being late caused less marketshare, resulting in less development for the platform.  It also doesn't matter how much Windows phones are released, the problem will most likely not work. VR is in a pretty bad scenario too, since recent game releases are already showing improper optimization and terrible ports, which is a complete necessity when you want the more demanding VR technology.

 

Summary: If the mass of consumers won't get it (due to any reason including lack of supporters), then the mass of developers will not support it (due to lack of consumers). 

[Humbug]

I'm taking this $1500 figure with a large dose of Sodium Chlroide

 

http://www.androidauthority.com/htc-vice-price-667174/

there’s no saying this is the absolute final price for the HTC Vive either. The figure was reported by Focus Taiwan, based on estimates by “foreign brokerages”. Those estimates laid the cause of the higher price tag at the feet of the Vive’s spatial recognition and advanced wireless controllers.

 

[ChineseChef]

All these first-gen VR devices will be completely irrelevant in about a year when gen 2 rolls around and completely kicks gen 1's ass.

 

I have no problem with the price tag of some of these items, if it was a one time purchase.  But the fact that a new one will be coming out so soon makes it really hard to justify buying 1st or even 2nd gen, depending how quickly the next version comes out.  The comparison to monitors is troubling because my monitor may be expensive now, and a better cheaper one will come out next year.  But my current monitor, no matter how old, will be able to be useful until it physically stops working or the resolution/physical size is no longer useful to me.  And that size issue is a personal preference issue, not a software limitation.

 

The main thing that will hold back VR in my opinion is not purely the cost, but the cost+release schedule.  If I know my $1000 device will be good for years to come, than its not a problem to "invest" in my experience.  But if I will not be able to use my current one in 2-3 years, it has suddenly become a toy for the rich.  And even if a lot of people buy the first one, how many times can you drop a grand on the new headset?  How many people will be able to multi-platform?  If these things become walled gardens, people are going to have to pick a side.  It won't be like the consoles, where most people just get both/all.  Not many people will be able to afford the $1500 PC capable of running these, plus a $700 device, plus a $1000+ device, plus whatever the extra controller/interface devices will cost.  And even if they can do it once, they will likely have to upgrade one piece at a time after that.

 

The key to adoption will be how long the old models will still be "good enough".  Otherwise people will get purchase fatigue really quick.  And I don't personally think the price will be coming down with v2 or v3.  They have so many more things they want to add and do with the headsets on a physical hardware level that the devices will likely improve a lot, but not be cheaper for a long time.  If the market with other devices is any indication, once they find a "price point" that allows them to sell enough units, they will just leave it there, despite costs.

 

Just my thoughts.

 

Side note: I am agreeing with and jumping off your point @lots of unexplainable lag

[Syfes]

If the mass of consumers won't get it (due to any reason including lack of supporters), then the mass of developers will not support it (due to lack of consumers).

What VR really needs is a hardware manufacturer with the balls to sell at a loss and risk it all to boost the market, but unfortunately it looks like that's not happening any time soon... And it's a damn shame.

[Humbug]

You are misunderstanding why people are upset of the price points. The worst thing that can happen though is a very small amount of people owning the VR headsets. If there is a small amount of users owning it, then developers are less likely to support it.

Devs will support them because the amount of work required isn't too scary. Most of the R&D and pain and experimentation has been shouldered by Valve and Oculus over the last few years.

It's not like optimizing a game or porting to a new platform. Both Oculus and Valve will work with all the major AAA devs to get support baked into the major engines (already begun). Soon you will have Unreal4, Frostbite, Source2, Unity 5 and more all natively supporting both Vive and the Rift. Then new games developed on those do not need to do that work again.

 

What will have limited support is the room-scale VR because that requires games specifically to be built around that and the gameplay to built around that from the ground up. But as a seated experience both the vive and the rift will get good support from games that were not planned as VR games but retroactively get the feature added. Driving and flying games particularly will jump on board.

 

Supporting this is not comparable in difficulty to (for example) porting you game to Linux and getting it running on openGL. And even that a lot of devs have done despite the minuscule market share...

[That Norwegian Guy]

Don't worry, the past year has been the best year ever to buy a new monitor, put VR on the back burner for a decade or two.

[Humbug]

What VR really needs is a hardware manufacturer with the balls to sell at a loss and risk it all to boost the market, but unfortunately it looks like that's not happening any time soon... And it's a damn shame.

Let it grow organically.

Costs will come down, technology will get even better.

Game devs will get better at using it.

GPUs will become faster.

This is the early-adopter phase. VR will not die just because the first gen is expensive.

 

[Misanthrope]

Doesn't anyone understand that THIS IS A FIRST GEN NEW PRODUCT! Of course it's going to cost a lot. It's like 3D printers, they cost a lot at first, but they are starting to go down in price. It's not meant to be for the masses, and considering the first pre orders sold out, it makes sense.....

Not really. In a way this is yet another attempt at 3D basically.

[CostcoSamples]

Yeah, I call BS.  No way they will sell at $1500USD.

[Misanthrope]

Let it grow organically.

Costs will come down, technology will get even better.

Game devs will get better at using it.

GPUs will become faster.

This is the early-adopter phase. VR will not die just because the first gen is expensive.

3D did, as I said above I see many parallels between 3D and VR

[Humbug]

3D did, as I said above I see many parallels between 3D and VR

VR is 3D done right.

Providing separate images for each eye with no light leakage between eyes (caused by imperfect polarization filters) and hence not suffering from the clarity loss which plagued that tech. Also there's no comparison in terms of immersion levels. The head tracking and FOV changes everything plus the fact that you are no longer looking at a window into the virtual world, instead you are inside the virtual world.

 

Also when did 3D die? There are 3D cinemas everywhere.