HTC Vive pre-orders off to a flying start, despite lofty price tag

[HEXUS]

An average of over 25 units sold every second for the first 10 minutes.

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[Rables]

Short of a small winfall; or a more agreeable PS VR price point - I think I'm getting priced out of this market for a bit. Maybe a 2nd job might be in order!

[scaryjim]

15k in the first 10 minutes, sure - that's a very respectable pre-order rate. But how many have been pre-ordered after the first ten minutes?

[BigDaddyXD]

My order was finished 8 minutes after the countdown reached zero. I have been saving money for a while now, so i was "prepared". I wouldn't wanna miss on roomscale vr and handtracking, so rift is not an option
Also i like that HTC/Valve are taking an open source approach with their soluion.

[edzieba]

15k in the first 10 minutes, sure - that's a very respectable pre-order rate. But how many have been pre-ordered after the first ten minutes?

Enough to push the current delivery date back a month, though we don't know HTC's month-to-month production volume.

[bridges009]

Nearly £60 for delivery? Does it come in a limo?

[Kanoe]

I would like to think that I got the PC to run VR pretty well but thats means I dont have the money to buy the VR headset though. Don't even think I could get the wife to sign off on the Rift either at £500 plus shipping.

[tonyd223]

VR? I wear glasses, so?

[Spud1]

I'm amazed by the price - especially when the difference between the Vive and rift is only the tracking gimmick, which will be great until people remember that its more fun to play games sat in a comfy chair instead of running around the room (as the Wii taught us...). The same applies to hand tracking - whilst it has been fun to use my Rift in combo with a leap motion to visualise my hands, it is a very, very tiring way to play Half Life 2.

By far and away the best experiences have all been sat in a comfy chair with an Xbox controller (or HOTAS setup in the case of Elite), enjoying the immersion. Unless you have another £1k to splash out on an omnidirectional treadmill of course!

Looking forward to some real world comparisons of the final units - in all honesty I hope that they both perform similarly and that neither company does something stupid to alienate the other users - like Valve only supporting the Vive for upcoming steam VR releases and no the rift. That would kill the market before it's even got off the ground.

[Percy1983]

I'm amazed by the price - especially when the difference between the Vive and rift is only the tracking gimmick, which will be great until people remember that its more fun to play games sat in a comfy chair instead of running around the room (as the Wii taught us...). The same applies to hand tracking - whilst it has been fun to use my Rift in combo with a leap motion to visualise my hands, it is a very, very tiring way to play Half Life 2.

By far and away the best experiences have all been sat in a comfy chair with an Xbox controller (or HOTAS setup in the case of Elite), enjoying the immersion. Unless you have another £1k to splash out on an omnidirectional treadmill of course!

Looking forward to some real world comparisons of the final units - in all honesty I hope that they both perform similarly and that neither company does something stupid to alienate the other users - like Valve only supporting the Vive for upcoming steam VR releases and no the rift. That would kill the market before it's even got off the ground.

Very much mirrors my opinion, all reports say the Rift is the better headset and HTC keeping going on about a feature I don't care for and can't use, room scale.

[TehH4rRy]

Nearly £60 for delivery? Does it come in a limo?

Covers import tax as well, it's selling from the US so our wonderful HMRC need their cut of your VR funtimes

[The Hand]

For about £750 you could build a pretty good PC. I can't see myself getting one of these in the near future.

[Wozza63]

For about £750 you could build a pretty good PC. I can't see myself getting one of these in the near future.

The requirements are a PC worth twice that.

[pvtbanner]

At these prices it looks like I'll be waiting for the 3rd generation, just cant justify the outlay.

[iworrall]

/me goes back to shopping for more monitors.

[Hicks12]

I'm amazed by the price - especially when the difference between the Vive and rift is only the tracking gimmick, which will be great until people remember that its more fun to play games sat in a comfy chair instead of running around the room (as the Wii taught us...). The same applies to hand tracking - whilst it has been fun to use my Rift in combo with a leap motion to visualise my hands, it is a very, very tiring way to play Half Life 2.

By far and away the best experiences have all been sat in a comfy chair with an Xbox controller (or HOTAS setup in the case of Elite), enjoying the immersion. Unless you have another £1k to splash out on an omnidirectional treadmill of course!

Looking forward to some real world comparisons of the final units - in all honesty I hope that they both perform similarly and that neither company does something stupid to alienate the other users - like Valve only supporting the Vive for upcoming steam VR releases and no the rift. That would kill the market before it's even got off the ground.

Room scale is not a gimmick... the Wii, kinect, move are all gimmicks but honestly you will probably not see the appeal until you have tried it. The vive and Oculus touch both have relative tracking and extremely precise accuracy, in VR being able to interact with your environment with your hands and arms is just insane, its overwhelming really and helps generate presence (the feeling of actually being there).

Rift can do room scale anyway and it still is a fair price, I am keeping my Oculus preorder but am completely open to getting a vive as well but first I must upgrade my PC (which i am simply waiting for the next GPU and CPU generations ).

Its expensive but its not expensive in terms of the technology, people forget that LCD tvs and mobile phones were EXTREMELY expensive until several generations passed (think everyone can remember when paying 2k for a flat screen was 'good') so yes bleeding edge its a bargain in a way (VR is probably the biggest achievement IMO) and I cannot wait for my cv1.

Good that both companies are selling a lot as it means VR will be a success.