Right on schedule, HTC has opened up pre-orders for its Vive virtual reality headset and controllers on its website. The Vive will cost $799 in the U.S., £689 in the UK and €899 in Europe.
The HTC Vive will ship on April 5, mere days after its closest competitor, the $599 Oculus Rift, which ships on March 28.
The Vive's $200 premium over the Rift may be a turnoff, but it's important to remember what you're getting for that extra money. Whereas the Rift ships with an Xbox One controller, the Vive ships with two wand-like hand controllers that let you touch and interact with objects in VR as if they're your hands.
Yes, the Rift is going to get its own version of these hand controllers -- they're called Oculus Touch and they're amazing -- but they won't come out until later this year. Oculus also hasn't announced how much the Touch controllers will cost.
At launch, the Rift will mostly be a "seated" experience, meaning you'll be sitting down to enjoy the content. The Vive, however, is a spatial experience right off the bat; the controllers together with the two included base stations are designed to let you move about freely within a 15 x 15-foot space.
I've been fortunate enough to try the Vive on several occasions and it impressed each and every time. Mashable Tech Editor Pete Pachal also agrees.
Whether you're on the deck of a sunken ship at the bottom of the ocean, on a space station firing blasts at robot orbs, or painting in 3D, the Vive is truly an immersive experience that separates it from the Rift... for now.
Unlike mobile VR headsets like the Gear VR and Google Cardboard that are powered by smartphones, both the Vive and Rift require powerful PCs with relatively beefy graphics cards in order to work. To make it easier for consumers to get up and running, Oculus VR has teamed up with several PC makers to sell PC bundles that include the Rift headset. HTC hasn't announced any plans to sell any such bundles of its own.
Here's what comes with your $800 Vive investment:
Vive headset
Vive controllers (one for each hand)
Vive base stations (2)
Vive link box
Vive earbuds
2 included games (Job Simulator: The 2050 Archives and Fantastic Contraption
Here's Job Simulator: The 2050 Archives...
...and here's Fantastic Contraption in action:
BONUS: VirZoom review: I got sick pedaling this virtual reality fitness bike
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