Virtual Reality has been all the buzz lately, what with the pricing for the Oculus Rift being released (the Reddit AMA Palmer Luckey, the founder of Oculus, engaged in was an event of its own), Oculus showcasing some VR ready PCs of its partners and various game developers stating that their games would be VR compatible. But now the pricing of Oculus’s greatest competitor, the HTC Vive, has been released at the Mobile World Congress — it costs $200 more.
Now before you flip your table and take to social media channels to express your outrage at the cost, the $799 VR device may not be all that more expensive than the Oculus Rift for a few simple reasons. The HTC Vive, which will be powered by Valve’s Steam VR, will also ship with a controller for each hand, a pair of the “Lighthouse” laser stations that track your every movement in a room scale situation better than Microsoft. Two games also ship with the HTC Vive: Fantastic Contraption and Job Simulator (which is sure to fill the void that the device will create in the job market).
While you do also get two games with the Oculus Rift (Eve: Valkyrie and Lucky’s Tale) you only get an Xbox controller and a remote to fiddle around with. You do not get the Oculus Touch, the custom controllers made for the Rift. If and when those go for sale, you can them to cost a $100, each. That easily brings it up to the price of the HTC Vive.
In addition to that the Vive will include also include integrated phone functions that allow the user to answer calls, check text messages, and view calendar reminders without removing the headset or stopping play.
The device will be available in early April with pre-orders beginning on February 29th.
