Valve and HTC just announced that they are developing a VR headset, called HTC Vive.

Website:
http://www.htcvr.com/

Article:
http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/1/8127445/htc-vive-valve-vr-headset



Plan is to release a devkit this spring and a consumer version later this year.

Known specs so far:
- 1080x1200 each eye at 90 Hz (2160x1200 combined)
- Audio Jack on the side of the headset
- low persistence
- 110 degree FOV
- uses 2 external sensors for tracking

They will be demoing it at GDC next week.


So, what do you think Scawen? Will you order a devkit? Or will you stick to Oculus for now?

EDIT: More photos of the headset:
http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/2/8131793/htc-vive-valve-vr-headset-photos
Looks like it has fresnel lenses.

EDIT2:

Where to put it?

I'm personally more inclined to push my VR money towards HTC and Valve than Oculus and Facebook. Competition is always good, even if we are still in the dawn of the true coming of VR.

Even if the resolution seems to be lacking on the Vive, ultrawide is a great aspect ratio for VR purposes to get a wider FOV. Now they only need to push the resolution up to 3440x1440...

Also this.

I'd actually like to test either this or the Oculus Rift on the Gamescom in Cologne this year, but not sure yet if I will go there.

And buying this would be way too expensive for my budget

Quote from Matrixi :

I'm personally more inclined to push my VR money towards HTC and Valve than Oculus and Facebook.

For me it's a matter of which of the headsets will be better, have better software support, price to quality ratio, you know - things that matter, rather than a logo on the headset.

Quote from Matrixi :

Even if the resolution seems to be lacking on the Vive, ultrawide is a great aspect ratio for VR purposes to get a wider FOV. Now they only need to push the resolution up to 3440x1440...[/url]

Resolution doesn't sound impressive at all, it's basicaly DK2 with some extra width resolution which will be consumed by the wider FOV. Hopefuly the consumer version will have higher resolution.

http://i.imgur.com/KvJ0MFR.jpg

What I really like about the Vive is that it doesn't use external camera for possitional tracking. Camera makes Rift harder to set up and if you want to use it with a laptop it's a pain in the ass.

Quote from Amynue :

For me it's a matter of which of the headsets will be better, have better software support, price to quality ratio, you know - things that matter, rather than a logo on the headset.

Nothing to do with logos. Developer support is one of the most important things on an early device like this, something which Oculus isn't handling very well at all.

They're also currently focusing very heavily in to mobile VR, which I consider quite premature due to the lack of raw GPU power on current SOC's to push the crazy amount of pixels that HMD's need. I know it's most likely due to their agreement with Samsung as a hardware partner, but judging by what they've put out, current research seems to be very much mobile focused.

personally i would have to think hard about buying any hmd that has significantly lowere res than... lets say 4k

looks a bit like oculus are dangling their feet until samsung gets their 4k note displays under control and nvidia gets vr sli working

Ok so turns out that the sreens are actually 1080x1200, not 1200x1080 and that gives combined resolution of 2160x1200 and 110 degree FOV, which is the same as DK1. Positional tracking does actually require external sensors, 2 of them. So yeah, nothing groundbraking.

As far as I understand, and thats also on the slide, you get 1080x1200 per eye. So the screen is 2160x1200 not even remotely close to DK1.

Quote from troy :

As far as I understand, and thats also on the slide, you get 1080x1200 per eye. So the screen is 2160x1200 not even remotely close to DK1.

I was obviously referring to the FOV, DK1 also had 110 degrees.

longer video on it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leg2gS6ShZw

All I'm saying is if you're putting your eggs in the DK2 basket, you're screwed when Oculus and Facebook use their technology for hilarious Facebook apps while HTC and Valve put their money on games. If you really think Oculus' system is better, you really know nothing about VR at all and the state of the industry at all. The Vive will without a doubt have the better developer support

It's a bit concerning from a pure gaming perspective to see how Oculus seems to be developing. BUT, Farcebook rather than gamers spent $2 Bil to buy it out for their own purposes.

"Instead of channelling its energies into gaming, like many thought it would after the Oculus Rift buy last year, Facebook’s proposition for the platform looks likely to push the more mainstream movie format. This is backed by the calibre of expertise brought in to steer the project, including industry veterans from Pixar Animations Studios and Lucasfilm."

"If the medium is to be widely accepted by advertisers then the social network needs to show how the learnings can convey a more tangible form of the brand experience."
http://www.thedrum.com/news/2015/01/27/what-facebook-s-oculus-rift-movies-means-ads

HOWEVER

Apparently some people prefer to use drugs to visit their own virtual realities full of conspiracies, but lets keep it on topic and stick to head mounted displays.

Interesting... we'll see what happens.

Good that there will be some competition. Sometimes trying to communicate with Oculus on the "developer forums" is quite an unpleasant experience, as they usually don't reply to any simple or quite reasonable questions, for example about bugs or things that are not documented. Interestingly I read that facebook treats their own app developers in a similar way.

I don't expect to jump in and buy any early dev kits of this or any other headsets. More likely to see how it goes and maybe wait until they have matured a bit.

Seems to me a couple of design flaws with the headset shown in the first post. No strap over the head, so the lower edge of the goggles will press hard half way down your face. And the side vents will let in light which might not be helpful.

FWIW: Valve of all comapnies will definitely be the most open and supportive of developers. They've already promised to be releasing an API that has 0 Steam dependencies (with 100% API compatibility).

While Oculus has better specs right now, I will gladly wait for HTC and Valve to catch up. HTC has been in the hardware game for quite some time compared to Oculus kind of appearing out of thin air. The only reason the Oculus is better speced right now is because they were the first to come out with dev kits. Now that their is competition, development on VR should start picking up speed.

Only time will tell.

The other thing that's important is that Valve is open to letting anyone produce a VR system with their API and design. Which means that there may be options in the future of multiple devices, while the programming API stays the same.

It would definitely be good to have a unified interface so your program can render on whatever VR goggles you install. Just like you can use any game controller. But (without thinking this through in detail) hopefully the interface would not be controlled by Microsoft, as I suspect they would use it as another way to force people to keep buying the latest version of Windows.

Quote from Scawen :

It would definitely be good to have a unified interface so your program can render on whatever VR goggles you install. Just like you can use any game controller. But (without thinking this through in detail) hopefully the interface would not be controlled by Microsoft, as I suspect they would use it as another way to force people to keep buying the latest version of Windows.

Valve certainly isn't Microsoft. Valve also has been the beacon of hope for PC gaming, and without Steam, PC gaming (at least with AAA titles) would be practically dead.

Plus Valve, after almost 20 years of doing things still hasn't fallen into the "lets do evil to make more money" trap that most companies fall into. They still make boatloads of money while being not evil.

Sounds good then. I'll watch this with interest!

Valve is committed as well to supporting all 3 major OS' too.

Quote from dawesdust_12 :

Plus Valve, after almost 20 years of doing things still hasn't fallen into the "lets do evil to make more money"

Except their €=$ scam. Apart from that, Valve is great.

Quote from FedtStensDyr :

Quote from dawesdust_12 :

Plus Valve, after almost 20 years of doing things still hasn't fallen into the "lets do evil to make more money"

Except their €=$ scam. Apart from that, Valve is great.

Except every non-EU company seems to use 1EUR = 1 USD. It's not like it's just Valve doing it.

It's not fair, but it's not a scam either. Remember that the publishers do set the prices for games on Steam, not Valve.

Don´t want to derail the thread any further, but I don´t share your take on how Steam prices are set(I could be wrong of course). Didn´t want to start an argument, just state that they go for the money, as most do these days.