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Valve Starts Shipping HTC’s Vive VR Gear to Developers

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Valve starts to ship HTC's Vive

Some time ago, we wrote about how Valve has paired with HTC, and they are building a new Virtual Reality headset called Vive, and that they will be shipping their device to a select few developers.

Now, we are happily announcing that Valve has started to ship the VR dev gear, and those of you who were selected – you lucky bastards – should expect a delivery man knocking on your door any day now.

For those of us who haven’t been chosen by the almighty Gaben – me included – the time to meddle with Valve’s VR headset will be later this year. Regular gamers will have the chance of playing with The Vive this Christmas – and it’s going to be one hell of a gift for your geeky loved one.

Valve has confirmed that it has started shipping Vive Developer Edition.

This week, we have started shipping the Vive Developer Editions. This first wave includes a wide range of developers from major movie studios, triple A developers, to small indie teams working on their first title. We will continue to ship to additional developers through the spring and summer.
In the box is a headset, 2 Lighthouse base stations, 2 wireless Steam VR controllers, various cables, instructions, and everything else needed to get started. This will allow developers to target the same system consumers will have in their homes later this year.

If you don’t have the Valve VR gear you can still be an observer. Head down to their community SteamVR Developer Hardware discussion, and take a look at what awesome stuff brilliant minds are coming up with.

Valve Vive Developer Edition

At the moment, we don’t know any information regarding its price, nor its availability – but it’s most likely going to ship worldwide. What we do know is that the SteamVR will have its very own Steam Store page filled with virtual reality games, movies, and apps.

It’s a bold move, and Valve’s alliance with HTC may be fruitful to say the least. There isn’t a king yet, and more and more companies are jumping on the virtual reality bandwagon. Take for example Google, who has recently announced that they will be building a VR gear in collaboration with GoPro. Facebook-owned Oculus Rift will be shipping starting early 2016, and Sony’s Project Morpheus is kept under a tight sealed lid.

Valve and HTC's Vive

I’ll happily buy a virtual reality headset, a couple of months after the internet will be filled with peer reviewed devices. FullDive seems like a nifty, and cheap product – and I’m more inclined on buying it, rather than a $400 device on release day.

What about you? Do you fancy this virtual reality trend? Or do you think it will flop miserably?

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Valve is giving the VR headset for free

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Developers Edition

It isn’t shocking news that Valve will be giving away, for free, their VR headset, named HTC Vive Developer Edition – they are known for their marketing strategies of giving away free gear for developers to play around with. Valve Steam Machine suffered from the same marketing ploy, and it raised its popularity tenfold.

At this time, it’s unknown when, and where you can apply for a HTC Vive – rumours have it that you’ll be able to apply on HTC’s VR website next week.

Fortunately, we don’t have to wait long enough for the VR gear to be available to the general public. ” Built to deliver high-end VR, the HTC Vive Developer Edition is the first look at SteamVR.” Valve states on the Steam website. “The dev kit comes with a headset, two controllers and two base stations-everything you need to dive in and start creating new interactive VR experiences. It will be available this spring, followed by consumer edition hardware later in 2015.”

HTC’s, and Valve’s marketing strategies are somewhat different, and at the same time they can be seen as aggressive if you care to compare them to Facebook-owned Oculus Rift, or Project Morpheus, currently developed by Sony.

Oculus Rift has already been sent to backers of the Kickstarter campaign, and the developer edition is sold for 350$ – although the creators highly recommend non-developers to wait a while and not meddle with on-going demos, and concept games, because it will have a bad impact on their future experience with their virtual reality machine.

On the other hand, Sony has shipped the Project Morpheus to only a few, and select developers. Maintaining a hush-hush strategy for their virtual reality gear. And even more so, Sony has borrowed the headsets to the developers – free doesn’t make big corp investors think of profits, does it?

According to HTC, those who will be chosen will be sent a headset along with two controllers and a base station – it’s everything a developer needs to create a virtual reality world for the end-user to experience.

HTC VR’s homepage states that their collaboration with Valve is for the long-run and that we should be expecting more news regarding games, and apps from both of the companies – ” The Vive headset was developed in conjunction with Valve, creators of such ground-breaking games as Portal and Half-Life. HTC manufactures some of the finest consumer electronics on the planet and Valve is an unrivaled architect of virtual worlds, so you know the collaboration is something special. Vive is powered by Valve’s SteamVR so plenty of games that take advantage of its capabilities will soon be available on the Steam service.”.

The thing that differentiates Vive from other virtual reality gear is that the user will be rooted in real space. The headset maps out the room, and then selects various scenarios for you to play in – it alerts you when you get too close to a real-life object. It limits its ability to create a space exploration game, for example, but at the same time, you can be fully immersed in your own room, walking down the hallway seeking glorious treasure at the end of the, what is now, an underwater cave.

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