But consumer uptake is still pretty slow
Steam VR is Valve’s answer to virtual reality devices like PlayStation VR and the Oculus Rift. Long rumoured to be in the pipeline, Valve’s first virtual reality headset was initially unveiled at Game Developer's Conference 2015.Gamers everywhere remain hugely excited by the prospect of Valve, operator of the biggest distribution platform in the world and a critically acclaimed developer in its own right, entering the VR space.
HTC Vive latest news
13/05/2016: A month after the launch of the HTC Vive, software sales estimates from Ars Technica's Steam Gauge project can at reveal what are the most popular games are on the HTC Vive right now.At the top of the list is The Lab, a compilation of Valve’s room-scale VR experiments set in a pocket universe within Aperture Science, giving players the ability to complete a number of tasks: fix a robot, defend a castle, adopt a mechanical dog, and more.
The second most popular game on the Steam network is Surgeon Simulator VR: Meet the Medic, a game that puts in charge of the operating table and in the shoes of the medic to save someone’s life.
Third on the list on the Gauge Project is Heaven Life, an experience in which users explore different virtual worlds. The inspiration for the environments comes from the book "Origins of Architectural Pleasure" in which the welfare is of primary importance.
In fourth place is Water Bears VR followed by the Ikea VR Experience in fifth place.
While it can display the list in order of most popular, the Gauge Project also shows that PC-based virtual reality is taking time to get off the ground, most likely due to the HTC Vive market currently being very limited by lack of hardware in players' homes.
09/05/2016: A new VR peripheral for HTC Vive, and other VR headsets, enables its users to plunge their hands and arms into the virtual world.
Through its new VR glove and body sensors, Manus VR has delivered what it claims is the “first ever” arm tracking in unison with the HTC Vive headset.
The company, based in the Netherlands, demonstrated a prototype of its VR kit last year.
Now it has released footage of an experimental demo where a user’s hand and elbow movements can be tracked in VR.
Though a Vive headset is used in the demo, the company has said it is exploring connectivity with Oculus Rift and the forthcoming PlayStation VR headset as well.
The Vive already has a set of official handheld controllers that enable users to interact with virtual objects according to how the controller is programmed. Manus’s method, however, offers a far more naturalistic manner of manipulating objects in the virtual space.
The company’s VR glove has already been put through its paces with a demo of Bossa Studios’s Surgeon Simulator, and it is not hard to see the benefits that this technology would enable for enterprise VR experiences, which require more precise tactile control.
This new feature will be released as part of the Manus SDK this June.
A release date for the consumer version of Manus has not yet been announced.
28/04/2016: One of the most consistently raised problems with VR is the lack of well fleshed-out games, but HTC has pledged to fix this, with a $100 million accelerator fund for VR developers.
The 'Vive X' program will debut in three locations, launching in San Francisco, Beijing, and Taipei, which is also home to the Taiwanese company's headquarters. More locations will reportedly be added in the future.
As well as investment capital, HTC will also be providing the program's startups with teaching and guidance.
"Our mission is simple," a spokesperson said. "We want to help cultivate, foster and grow the global VR ecosystem by supporting startups and providing them with education, investment and mentorship".
HTC isn't setting up the scheme entirely out of the goodness of its heart, however -- successful applicants to the program will have to give up an undefined "small amount" of equity in their company in exchange.
26/04/2016: HTC has released a companion iPhone app for its VR headset that allows users to receive notifications from their smartphone while engaging in virtual space.
The app lets iPhone owners the chance to perform some unique actions for the first time, including reading text messages and receiving calls, as well as viewing calendar reminders, all within the confines of their virtual world.
“I can finally be in VR and not have to worry about people losing contact with me,” wrote Sho0Fly on the App Store, an early user of the app.
Notifications forwarded by the app appear briefly in the headset’s heads up display (HUD). They can also be selected from the HTC Vive dashboard later. Third-party app notifications are not currently supported by the headset.
As well as downloading the free app, Vive owners must install the HTC Vive client on their PC. Android’s own Vive app is not currently compatible with the iOS version.
HTC Vive users can find the free app on App Store here.
19/04/2016: Oculus has condemned a software hack that enables HTC Vive owners to run Oculus Rift titles.
News of the Rift-on-Vive software hack emerged last week on a Reddit thread. A group called LibreVR were behind the plug-in, which they named ‘Revive’, and posted it on GitHub. It allows Vive users to play Rift games by “re-implementing functions from the Oculus Runtime and translating them to OpenVR calls”.
Now Oculus has warned that the hack – which requires bypassing the Oculus end user agreement, and possibly Vive’s too – will not be around for long, as it is moving to block hacks such as this in future security updates.
"This is a hack, and we don't condone it," said Oculus, speaking to GamesIndustry.biz. "Users should expect that hacked games won't work indefinitely, as regular software updates to games, apps, and our platform are likely to break hacked software."
Cross-device play is something that some users are keen to have, but such hacks contravene the terms and conditions of one or more of the parties involved.
Still, hobbyists have, for a long time, been successfully running software hacks to get games and applications to play on systems they were not originally designed for. The Sony PSP famously generated a large homebrew community, which managed to hack 16-bit Nintendo and Sega games onto the portable, staying two steps ahead of Sony’s security patches.
Our sister site, Expert Reviews, recently reviewed the HTC Vive.
06/04/2016: Ikea has released a pilot version of a virtual kitchen experience for the HTC Vive on Steam.
The app, called Ikea VR Experience, is the Swedish home furnishing maker’s first step into VR technology and is an effort to offer its customers a new way to engage with its products.
“Virtual reality is developing quickly and in five to ten years it will be an integrated part of people’s lives,” said Jesper Brodin, managing director at Ikea of Sweden and range and supply manager at Ikea Group.
“We see that virtual reality will play a major role in the future of our customers. For instance, someday, it could be used to enable customers to try out a variety of home furnishing solutions before buying them.”
With the Vive headset on, consumers can explore one of three kitchen room settings, each styled differently.
Users can change the colour of cabinets and drawers, and view the kitchen from different perspectives of a 3.3-foot-tall child or a 6.4-foot-tall adult.
Ikea’s VR app was made in conjunction with French development firm Allegorithmic, and was built with Unreal Engine 4.
Ikea plans to continuously update its VR app until the end of its pilot test this August.
16/03/2016: PlayStation VR is half the price of the HTC Vive, it has emerged.
The price and release details for Sony’s headset were finally revealed at GDC 2016, and PSVR has wowed fans and commentators with its $400 price-tag.
Compared to its competitors, the company’s entry into the current virtual reality arms race is surprisingly cheap – it’s less expensive than the Oculus Rift, and is a full 50 per cent cheaper than the $800 HTC Vive.
In fact, many users have noted that for the price of a single Vive unit – without the monster gaming PC required to run it – you can buy both not only PlayStation VR, but also a new PS4 on which to play it.
Sony’s PC-based rivals have been quick to justify their more expensive headsets in the face of new, more affordable competition. Oculus founder Palmer Luckey told GameSpot that the markets for console and PC VR are “almost completely different”.
"People who buy a Rift are people who already own a high-end PC or are willing to buy a high-end PC for VR,” he said. “People who buy a PlayStation VR are people who already own a PlayStation, or… probably already wanted [one] for other reasons”.
“I don't think there are many PC gamers that are going to buy a PlayStation and PlayStation VR from scratch,” explained Luckey, “and I don't think there are many PlayStation gamers that are going to buy a Rift and a high-end PC.”
15/03/2016: HTC Vive demo rooms will soon be appearing in Currys PC World stores, according to one employee.
Joshua Ball, editor of Start Replay, reported that the store in which he works part-time will be one of three stores where customers will be able to test out the headsets.
Locations in Reading, Leeds and London's Tottenham Court Road will reportedly be outfitted with the test chambers around March 17th.
Ball's article has now apparently been removed from the site, which almost certainly indicates that his information is correct.
It's unknown which games will be available to test, but Ball suspects that Tilt Brush and Job Simulator will be among the choices.
Surgeon Simulator and the Portal VR demo are also fairly likely to appear, due to their presence at previous demo events.
11/03/2016: Valve and HTC have announced the full list of games that they'll be showing off at this year's Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco.
According to Upload VR, there are 30 titles in all, including some that have already been announced and some that are debuting for the first time at GDC 2016.
Of the ones that have already been shown off, space simulators E.V.E. Valkyrie and Elite: Dangerous look to be some of the most engaging, along with FPS Hover Junkers and painting app Tilt Brush.
There are also some incredibly interesting-looking new announcements, however, including a realistic pool sim, a spoof of 70s cop shows with a Godzilla-sized protagonist and a game based on Cartoon Network's Adventure Time series.
The full list is collected below, but we'd expect all of these titles to be playable on the show floor.
- Giant Cop
- WaveVR
- Adventure Time
- Pool Nation
- Universe Sandbox 2
- Job Simulator: The 2050 Archives
- Fantastic Contraption
- Tilt Brush
- Unreal Editor
- John Wick: The Impossible Task
- Hover Junkers
- Vanishing Realms
- The Gallery
- Budget Cuts
- #SelfieTennis
- Virzoom
- Cloudlands Minigolf
- Space Pirate Trainer
- Arizona Sunshine
- Brookhaven
- Modbox
- Everest
- Waltz of the Wizard
- Raw Data
- Audio shield
- The Rose and I
- Unseen Diplomacy
- Water Bears
- Final Approach
- Thunderbird
- Marble Mountain
- Elite: Dangerous
- E.V.E.
- AltspaceVR
- Time Machine
The Steam boss revealed the information in an email responding to a fan's question, asking about the potential relationship between Steam and the Oculus Store.
"Developers who have VR titles for non-Vive HMDs can sell on Steam", he said, adding that "customers should be able to buy VR content at whatever store they want to".
There has been some debate over whether the competing companies will sell content compatible with the other's headset.
This is an especially important issue in the context of Steam, as it remains the largest digital storefront in gaming, and not having access to its platform could prove an issue for Oculus and its customers.
Newell also stated that "the Vive isn't tied to Steam", meaning that Vive users could potentially purchase and play content from the Oculus Store.
However, this doesn't necessarily mean the two are about to start co-operating. Oculus would have to agree to its first-party exclusives appearing on Steam or the HTC Vive.
Considering Oculus is still under a substantial amount of financial pressure compared to the already-successful Steam, this is probably less than likely - at least for the foreseeable future.
Valve, however, appears to be willing to play nice with the competition. Newell stated that "exclusivity is bad for developers and bad for customers".
01/03/2016: HTC sold more than 15,000 Vive virtual reality headsets less than 10 minutes after the product became available for pre-order yesterday.
The extent of the VR device's popularity was revealed by Shen Ye, VR product specialist at HTC, on Twitter last night.
Vive is the second virtual reality product to launch so far in 2016, after Facebook's Oculus Rift's stock for its first day of availability sold out in just 15 minutes.
HTC's Vive is priced at £689 for the consumer edition, and pre-orders were limited to one headset per customer when they opened at 3pm yesterday. The product will not ship until 5 April.
29/02/2016: International pricing for the HTC Vive VR headset has been revealed, and pre-orders will open from 3pm GMT today.
The starting UK price for the Vive Consumer Edition is £689, including VAT. That is higher than current direct exchange rates, but typical of the premium manufacturers tend to place on the UK market.
Orders will be limited to one unit per customer.
HTC has also provided further details on the pre-order package. It will include three VR games: Fantastic Contraption, Job Simulator, and Tilt Brush, a 3D painting experience from Google.
The bundle is available for a limited time, and the product will start shipping from 5 April.
In Europe, the Vive will launch at €899.00. In Australia and New Zealand, the Vive will launch for $899.00 US and $949.00 US respectively.
Further international prices for Japan, China and Canada can be found on HTC’s blog page.
22/02/2016: The HTC Vive’s final launch price has been revealed to be $200 more expensive than the Oculus Rift.
It was confirmed by the company at MWC that the Vive would be available for a mammoth $799, with pre-orders opening on 29 February and full commercial availability starting in early April.
UK pricing details are yet to be confirmed, but current direct conversion rates put the cost at around £565, rising to roughly £640 with import taxes and shipping including.
This will likely come as a shock to many, particularly after Oculus was lambasted for pricing the Rift at $600. On the other hand, the HTC Vive’s price does at least include motion controllers, while the Oculus Touch control system will retail separately at a later date.
It’s yet to be seen whether this slightly eye-watering price affects the uptake of VR. It doesn’t seem to have had too much of an effect on Oculus, whose initial run of pre-orders sold out in less than a day.
It’s also worth noting that both the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive could be undercut in terms of price by PlayStation VR. Sony’s headset is currently the only one that hasn’t released an official price, but if rumours are accurate, it may be much lower than both its competitors.
11/02/2016: The Unity game engine will have native support for the HTC Vive and Steam VR, it has been announced.
The news came as part of Vision Summit 2016, a conference focusing on VR and AR development, and was delivered by Valve's Gabe Newell via video link.
Oculus, which had already announced an integration with the Unity engine, also revealed at the conference that its headsets would ship with a four-month free trial of the more advanced Unity Pro package.
Unity is one of the most widely used game creation tools available and is employed particularly heavily by independent developers, due to its free availability.
It's also been used extensively in creating the first wave of VR games, including titles such as Surgeon Simulator and Job Simulator.
"We made many of our Vive demos using Unity, and continue to use it today in VR development," Newell said.
"Through that process, and in working with VR developers, we found some opportunities to make Unity even more robust and powerful for us and really want to share those benefits with all VR content creators."
Valve also announced that every developer at the conference would be provided with an HTC Vive Pre developer's kit, free of charge.
03/02/2016: HTC has announced a series of special events in London to promote its forthcoming Vive headset.
Running from 19 March to 3 April, ‘Virtually Dead’ is an immersive theatre production that combines live-action performance elements with specific VR zones for trying out the HTC Vive.
The event’s VR stations will be showing segments of zombie FPS Arizona Sunshine, including a brand new section, never before seen in Europe.
The show – which features 22 actors - is themed around zombies and takes place over a half-kilometer stretch of East London.
Tickets for the hour-long experience are available now for a cost of £30 each, with a maximum group size of ten people.
“By combining our VR with immersive theatre, we aim to introduce new audiences to HTC Vive before our April launch,” said HTC’s head of European VR marketing Jon Goddard.
“We have produced something that showcases VR in a whole new light and will attract people outside of the usual circles that would typically be interested in a VR event.”
01/02/2016: Valve recently gave fans a closer look at which titles would be making their way to the HTC Vive after its launch in April.
The company hosted a Steam VR developer showcase in Seattle last Wednesday, with 12 games across a range of genres.
First-person shooters were well represented, with offerings such as Space Pirate Trainer, Arizona Sunshine and Hover Junkers.
Space Pirate Trainer has players holding off waves of drone attackers aboard a space station, with clear inspiration from classics like Asteroids and Space Invaders.
Hover Junkers is reminiscent of the more modern Borderlands games and features stylised hovercraft acting as platforms for VR shootouts.
Arizona Sunshine is a more traditional zombie shooter, taking its cues from franchises like House of The Dead. Set in a series of closed-off areas, players must clear each one before progressing to the next.
Much like its rival the PlayStation VR, the Vive is getting a golf game at launch, in the form of Cloudlands: VR Minigolf. Developers Futuretown is also working on other VR titles for later release.
Part of the recent revival of rhythm games, Audioshield comes from the creator of the Audiosurf games. Players use the Vive motion wands as colour-coded shields to deflect a stream of orbs, generated based on any track from their music library.
One of the more interesting titles was Budget Cuts, a stealth game that plays like Portal, by way of Thief. Sneak around using a short-range teleporter, and disable robot guards with throwing knives.
Cartoon puzzle games were also on show. Final Approach sees players guiding aircraft into land and drawing flight paths with the Vive wands while Fantastic Contraption lets them solve puzzles by building weird and wonderful machines.
Tiltbrush, however, remains the most arresting app on the Vive. It’s not a game at all, but a Photoshop-like art tool for 3D space, allowing users to create art by drawing all around them.
Previously-seen titles like point-and-click adventure The Gallery: Call of the Starseed, space sim Elite: Dangerous and physics sandbox Job Simulator were also on display.
Most of the games showcased will be available at launch although Arizona Sunshine and Budget Cuts won’t be finished until later on in the year.
19/01/2016: HTC may spin off its Vive virtual reality business into a completely new company, reports have suggested.
A report in Taiwanese publication Commercial Times (reported by Focus Taiwan) citing unnamed industry sources claimed the company's CEO, Cher Wang, is eager to split the company to save its burgeoning revenues. However, the new company would be owned by Wang and HTC, the report said.
It is thought that previous CEO, Peter Chou, had started discussions around setting up a new virtual reality company before he stepped down in March 2015, but the discussions were suspended.
HTC is now said to be in negotiations with its staff involved in the virtual reality part of its business to determine whether they would be happy to work for a separate company.
By spinning off the company's virtual reality innovations from the main handset manufacturing business, HTC will be able to protect its assets if smartphone sales continue declining with the rise of Apple and Samsung's efforts.
The claims contrast a Telegraph interview (below) in which Wang said virtual reality was more important to the company than smartphones.
In its third quarter, HTC reported losses of around $151m (£105m), with revenues at half the amount they were in the same quarter of 2014.
The news about a potential spin-off led to HTC's share value rising sharply.
11/01/2016: HTC will begin taking pre-orders for the Vive from 29 February, its CEO has told the Telegraph.
It may abandon its smartphone business in favour of focusing on the virtual reality device, Cher Wang also admitted in the interview following CES 2016.
HTC’s smartphones have less than a one per cent market share, and the company has been the subject of numerous buyout rumours from various other tech companies.
When asked about the company’s plans for its mobile arm, she said HTC has “had some problems with it for two years” and that the company is being “more realistic” with its plans.
HTC won’t stop making phones for now, but if the company’s success doesn’t turn around, it could focus on virtual reality instead.
“Smartphones are important”, she said, “but… virtual reality is more important”.
However, Oculus has already drawn consumer criticism for pricing the Rift at $600, and although the VR space has much less competition than the smartphone market, the public has not yet fully got on board with the VR revolution.
The Vive HR will compete with Facebook's Oculus Rift and Sony's PlayStation VR when it goes on sale in April.
05/01/2016: The HTC Vive’s second iteration has been revealed at CES 2016.
Dubbed the ‘Vive Pre’, it’s the second developer edition, rather than the final product. HTC will be distributing 7,000 units to developers in preparation for the official launch in April.
As hinted at by earlier leaks, the headset and controllers have both been refined and redesigned – although the leaked images weren’t 100 per cent accurate.
The controllers have had an overhaul, and are now supposedly smoother and easier to use, with improved haptic feedback and inbuilt rechargeable batteries offering four hours play on a single charge.
As well as the expected improvements in ergonomics and comfort, the major new addition to the Vive’s headset is the inclusion of a front-facing camera.
This promises the ability to blend the physical and virtual worlds, ostensibly for functional purposes like having conversations, picking up real-world objects and – presumably - not tripping over pets.
If it works accurately, then this should provide a major advantage in real-world usability. It also ties into improvements in the Lighthouse base stations, which reportedly offer better tracking than the previous version.
“For too long, the promise of virtual reality has been little more than a promise,” HTC chairwoman and CEO Cher Wang said. “Today we stand on the precipice of a new era. Vive is creating a world where the only limit is human imagination.”
21/12/2015: HTC’s CEO Cher Wong has dropped hints that the Vive team has something very special in store for CES 2016.
Speaking at the company's first Vive developer forum in Beijing, she said that the team had recently made a very, very big technological breakthrough”.
Although no details were mentioned, the new innovation is scheduled to be shown off at Las Vegas’ CES technology expo in January.
This, according to Engadget, is what caused the consumer launch to be delayed until April.
The Vive was originally slated to receive a limited consumer release at the end of 2015, but aside from the release of a new batch of developer editions, that has now been skipped over entirely.
“We shouldn't make our users swap their systems later just so we could meet the December shipping date,” she said.
18/12/2015: New leaks may have revealed the final design of the consumer HTC Vive.
The images, which surfaced on the Oculus Rift sub-Reddit, were allegedly culled from the HTC website.
They appear to be high-quality press shots of both the Vive headset and the accompanying motion controllers, produced ahead of the device’s official unveiling.
The headset looks almost identical to the existing HTC Vive developer kits, except with slightly more refined materials and slimmed-down dimensions.
The motion controllers, on the other hand(s), have had a much more drastic makeover.
The materials have been similarly upgraded and look much more high-quality and the design, while essentially unchanged, is now much more aesthetically appealing than its predecessor.
They also now have a hollow ring at the top, instead of the dish-like protrusion seen in previous versions.
These images are currently unverified, but we’d be shocked if they’re not the real deal, largely due to the high quality. We’ll know more as we get closer to the headset’s April launch date, however.
09/12/2015: The official consumer release date of the HTC Vive will be in April next year.
After months of hints and speculation, HTC has finally revealed the launch date of its first VR headset in an official blog.
Pricing details and a concrete launch date have yet to be shared, but can presumably be expected at HTC’s developer conference in Beijing on 18 December.
The company has previously said that it will make a limited quantity of “community and developer systems” available in the last quarter of 2015.
However, that now appears to have been pushed back to the new year, when the company has said it will release “an additional 7,000 units” to developers.
“Since announcing the HTC Vive in March of this year we have focused on developing immersive content, refining both hardware design and user experience, and building relationships with new partners both inside and outside of the gaming industry,” the company said.
“In collaboration with Valve, we have been distributing the HTC Vive Developer Kits to developers and content creators, and are continuing to work with many other innovative companies to create content that spans gaming, entertainment, medical, education and retail.”
17/11/2015: The HTC Vive will carry a built-in microphone, according to Valve.
The issue was raised by a developer on the Steam forums, who posted a question regarding microphones and audio input.
Valve in-house programmer Jeep Barnett revealed that while USB microphones are currently compatible with the developer edition, the "current plan is to have a built in mic on the final version"
.
This raised an interesting question about the possibility of Siri-style voice input. Microsoft's Kinect had a similar feature, and it remains the peripheral's most consistently useful feature.
27/10/2015: A HTC exec may have revealed the HTC Vive’s official release date.
RoadToVr reports that Bartosz Zuk, HTC’s Product Commercialization Manager, has confirmed to Polish media sources that the Vive will “premiere” on 8 December.
The translation from Polish has led to some confusion regarding the actual meaning of Zuk’s comments – specifically whether this ‘premiere’ will be the Vive’s first retail launch, or just an event to unveil the consumer version of the headset.
As the deadline for the Vive’s promised ‘late 2015’ debut draws closer, it seems likely that this will be the retail release date, or within a week of it at the least.
Zuk also intimated that the first run of the HTC Vive will be available exclusively in the US, the UK and Germany, with more territories coming in 2016.
However, some doubt has been thrown on these rumours by HTC, who told RoadToVR that they “would not consider this information confirmed or from HTC official channels”.
We suspect that this is simply standard corporate damage control in the wake of a high-profile leak. As it comes from an HTC manager, this info seems plausible, but take it with a pinch of salt just in case.
20/10/2015: Vive fans have met with disappointment after it emerged that HTC will not be using its event today to reveal new details about the VR device.
The company will be hosting a virtual event at 5PM GMT, where it will unveil its new smartphone, rumoured to be called the HTC One A9.
Naturally, fans predicted that the virtual nature of the event meant that it would also feature announcements about HTC's forthcoming headset, with rumours and speculation about the hardware's specs growing and growing.
However, Valve's own Chet Faliszek tweeted that HTC's announcement was "a phone event", stating definitively that it had "nothing to do with VR".
With the Vive due for limited release before the end of the year, consumers are getting more and more anxious for fresh news of the device, and HTC is yet to unveil images of the finished product.
09/10/2015: GAME could be among the first stores to stock physical units of Valve’s VR hardware.
The PC gaming titan has entered into retail partnerships with electronic entertainment chains like the UK’s GAME, as well as GameStop and EB Games in the US, according to Gamasutra.
The agreement will see retailers opening specific “Steam Sections” in their outlets, primarily to promote and sell Valve hardware like the Steam Controller and Steam Machines.
There is currently no word on whether or not this deal will encompass the HTC Vive once it has been released. This seems incredibly likely, however, not least due to GameStop’s CEO Paul Raines’ desire to make GameStop “the destination for VR”.
This could be a smart business move for Valve, given the company’s limited physical distribution channels compared to other manufacturers.
Physical demonstrations also remain the only effective way to promote and market VR, due to the technology’s immersive nature, making retail displays something of a necessity.
21/09/2015: The HTC Vive has added a fairly substantial feather to its cap, with the announcement that space sim Elite: Dangerous will feature Steam VR support.
The game will be playable at launch, with support delivered via a free update coming 'Holiday 2015'.
With an existing player base of over 500,000 (based on copies sold), this gives the Vive an existing, successful title for players to jump straight into.
It's also a proven success with VR, as the developers built in compatibility for the Oculus Rift DK2 from the ground up.
Space games in general - and Elite: Dangerous in particular - have been instrumental in driving anticipation and excitement for consumer VR, so support for one of the technology's biggest platforms is somewhat unsurprising.
‘Back in December 2013 we were among the first to support virtual reality with a triple-A game," said Frontier Developments Creative Director Jonny Watts, "and for me, exploring, trading and fighting throughout Elite: Dangerous’ 1:1 scale Milky Way remains an unequalled virtual reality experience."
"We have been working closely with Valve to bring Elite: Dangerous to HTC Vive, and we are delighted with the quality we have been able to achieve."
Steam VR's parent company is equally enthused, wth Valve's Chet Faliszek saying "Frontier's Elite Dangerous is an excellent example of a team leveraging the versatility of the Vive and Steam VR".
01/09/2015: Developer Cloudhead Games have been showing off the movement system for their forthcoming Vive title The Gallery at the PAX gaming convention in Seattle.
The mechanic aims to solve the problem of Vive's limited playing space, which is restricted to a maximum of 15 feet by 15 feet, by allowing users to teleport over greater distances.
This system has been dubbed 'Blink', and allows players to warp directly to any point in their surroundings by using a targeting reticule on the ground. They can also move their entire playing space, with an outline showing where the bounds of their space will be in the virtual environment.
In practise, the movement system evokes old-school point-and-click adventure games like Myst, where players move between various static environments and viewpoints.
It's also reminiscent of the teleportation mechanic from 2012's Dishonored, also named Blink, although that was used more for stealth and exploration than basic movement.
It's an interesting way to combine the Vive's finite trackable space with larger, more open-ended environments, and is likely to be adopted by other titles as VR develops.
28/08/2015: Consumers wanting to grab the HTC Vive at launch will need to be quick, as the company has said that stock will be initially limited.
HTC is initially targeting a retail release towards the end of 2015, probably in order to beat competitors such as Project Morpheus and the Oculus Rift to the punch.
However, the company has released a statement ahead of games convention PAX saying that the first hardware shipments will consist of “a limited quantity of community and developer systems”.
Larger allocations of units will reportedly be available in the first quarter of 2016. This will presumably be around the same time frame as its main competitors, both of which are also targeting a Q1 release.
The limited availability is unlikely to prove a major problem to HTC. Previous comments from executives have already indicated that the company is targeting early adopters first and foremost, with the first headsets carrying a higher price tag.
A smaller stock could also help drive demand for the product, a strategy utilised by companies like OnePlus who stage ‘flash sales’ to create manufactured scarcity.
HTC Vive price
The launch price for the HTC Vive has been revealed as $799. This staggering price is over $200 more expensive than the Oculus Rift, which was itself criticised for its high price point.The company has not yet revealed any UK details on pricing, but with current conversion rates, as well as tax and shipping, the final price for UK customers looks to be around £650.
While HTC will doubtless be criticised for the Vive's expensive price tag, there were some clues that it was coming.
Speaking last year, HTC connected products marketing executive director Jeff Gattis said that the Vive would target the “high end” of the consumer market, delivering a “premium VR experience”, but at a higher initial cost.
“Starting with the premium experience, even if it has a slightly higher price point, is the right thing to do from a strategic point of view. The price can always come down as the market grows. We know there is some pent-up demand there, so there’s not so much price sensitivity early on.”
HTC Vive release date
Pre-orders for the HTC Vive will open on 29 February. The devices will ship to customers around early April, which is also when the company is aiming to have the devices in-store for general purchase.HTC Vive hands-on review
We managed to get a proper session with the Vive, courtesy of game developer Bossa Studios, and we definitely liked what we saw. The positional room tracking is fantastic, and works flawlessly, and combined with the motion controllers creates a very real sense of immersion in the virtual world.You can read our hands-on review of the HTC Vive here.
HTC Vive specs and hardware
Due to its background in mobile technology, HTC already has something of a pedigree when it comes to working with the type of hardware that goes into VR headsets. Looking at the specs for the developer edition of the Vive, it’s easy to see where the company’s smartphone history has come into play.The developer edition has a stated resolution of 1080x1200px, split across both eyes. It's also sporting a 90Hz refresh rate. Both specs are generally on par which what we'd expect at this stage in the device's development.
The consumer version of the Oculus Rift is currently thought to have a 2160x1200 display, which equates to the same resolution as the Vive when split across both lenses. PlayStation VR lists a slightly lower 960x1080 per eye display.
The Vive's frame rate is currently on the lower end: PlayStation VR boasts 120 fps, and the consumer Oculus Rift headset is thought to operate at around the same speed. This is a crucial issue, as high frame rate and low latency are essential to providing a smooth VR experience.
HTC Vive room tracking
Where the HTC Vive starts to get really interesting is in the Lighthouse technology it uses for motion tracking. Like other VR visors, the Vive uses a gyroscope, accelerometer and ‘laser position sensor’ to track the user’s head movement, and to detect where they’re looking.The Vive’s unique feature, however, is that it uses position tracking as well. The headset is supplied with two ‘base stations’ – sensor boxes that sit in opposite corners of whichever space you’re using for your VR experience.
Over a maximum area of 15 square feet, these sensors will track your physical movement, allowing you to get up, walk around and interact with the virtual world in real time. This is an innovative feature, as both Oculus Rift and PSVR offer no support for physical movement, relying instead on stationary head-tracking.
In addition to this, Vive uses a set of handheld motion controllers to allow users to realistically manipulate objects on the virtual plane. PSVR has incorporated this feature from the start of its development, utilising Playstation’s ill-fated Move controller. Oculus also recently announced the Half-moon prototypes for the Rift, which use similar tracking and input methods.
It’s worth noting that all of these specs and details are applicable predominantly to the developer version, and will likely be improved upon by the eventual consumer release date.
HTC Vive games
Vive is powered by Steam VR, which is an extension of Valve’s existing game distribution platform, initially developed to support the Oculus Rift DK2. As such, there’s already a pretty hefty list of titles which should support the Vive on launch.The list includes games such as Euro Truck Simulator 2, Surgeon Simulator 2013 and dinosaur crafting title Ark: Survival Evolved, as well as Valve’s own library of first-party games like Team Fortress 2 and The Orange Box.
One particular luminary which has announced support for the headset is multiplayer space combat and trading sim, Elite: Dangerous, which has been implementing VR via the Oculus Rift DK2 since it first started development.
However, as a nascent technology, the support for these titles – few of which are designed specifically for VR headsets – could be a little a shaky, and a reliably smooth and unfettered gaming experience is likely to be some way off.
HTC Vive additional content
As with the other headsets we’ve seen, the HTC Vive won’t just be a gaming peripheral. The company are aiming to leverage it as a total multimedia platform and have signed up Game Of Thrones network HBO, film studio Lionsgate and Google as external content partners to provide non-gaming experiences.Steam VR: hardware partners
Much like Valve’s Steam Machines initiative, Steam VR will see Valve team up with multiple hardware partners in order to provide the actual devices themselves. The first, best-known (and currently only) hardware provider is HTC.However, Valve has confirmed that its goal is to see more companies using the technology. Co-founder and MD Gabe Newell stated: “We're building tools and hopefully they're valuable to hardware partners who want to do it. In some cases, we'll take the leadership role in shipping stuff. But we're really just building tools for other people to continue. So you'll see more headsets."
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