Virtual Insanity: HTC Vive Will Cost £689/€899
Blimey!
When HTC announced a $799 US price tag (before sales tax) for the Vive, the virtual reality system they've been working on with Valve, we could only guess at how much that would convert to in real money. Well, with cybergoggle pre-orders opening later today, HTC have confirmed prices for the rest of the world. Oh my goodness a lot of money, is the answer. Folks in the UK will pay £689 and it's €899 in Cthulhu emoticon money (both including tax), and... go check out the full list.
Pre-orders will open at 3pm UK time today - check this to see what it means in other time zones. If you're up for this, I'd recommend registering an HTC account in case they're needed and a rush of cybergoggle fanatics crush the servers. The hardware, which includes the headset along with two motion controllers and sensors to detect users moving around the room, will begin shipping on April 5th.
Don't forget to run Steam's VR performance tester too.
If you'd rather try before slapping down £689 (which, you know, I'd probably recommend), a few Vive games will be playable at the EGX Rezzed show in London in April. More importantly than that, we'll be at Rezzed too (well, probably not me - but the Englanders).
HTC also announced yesterday that Google's magical 3D painting tool Tilt Brush will be included in the pre-order bundle, along with Fantastic Contraption and Job Simulator.
It is still amazing how they made Jay Kay look kinda cool.