HTC has just announced on their blog that their Vive Steam-VR-powered virtual reality system will be released commerically in April 2016. It’s a near miss on their original target (end of the year, so about now) but HTC seems to be using the extra time to beef up availability of Vive to developers.
The company is launching the second second generation of the Vive developer kit at a developer conference in Beijing on December 18, and we can expect to see it at CES 2016. 7,000 developer units will also be made available in the new year.
They’ll also be taking Vive on the road, to Sundance, SXSW, GDC and Mobile World Congress, part of their initiative to bring Vive to a broad group of content creators. Content is key to VR experiences, so it’s good that HTC is taking the time to court content creators – the Vive will need some compelling content to sell its take on VR to consumers in an increasingly-crowded yet nascent market.
Vive has piqued the world’s interest after delivering some pretty amazing experiences to journalists – including yours truly – since its announcement at Mobile World Congress earlier this year. It’s great to see them making progress towards its release, even if they’re missing their original target by a few months. Personally, I’m looking forward to the release, I still have to wonder how HTC plans to install a large empty room in all our houses.
Will you sign up for a Vive developer kit, or put down hard-earned in April? Tell us in the comments.
