The developer edition of the HTC Vive VR headsets is now shipping out but in very limited quantities.
HTC announced a partnership with gaming company Valve at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) this year for producing virtual reality (VR) headsets. At the event, HTC announced that the developer edition of the Vive VR headsets will be shipped in spring while the consumer version will be widely available by the end of 2015.
HTC claims that the HTC Vive will change the way people interact with technology and also the world around them.
"We achieved this once before with our development of smartphone technology," says Peter Chou, the CEO of HTC. "And, through our partnership with Valve, we'll now be doing this for a second time with VR technology of which consumers could only previously dream."
Now a Steam community blog has confirmed that the Vive VR Developer Edition headsets are being shipped to major movie studios, triple A developers as well as small indie teams working on their first title.
"In the box is a headset, 2 Lighthouse base stations, 2 wireless Steam VR controllers, various cables, instructions, and everything else needed to get started. This will allow developers to target the same system consumers will have in their homes later this year," per the Steam blog.
The Vive VR headset can be directly connected to a PC and boasts a number of sensors. The headset will feature 360-degree head rotation and a 90Hz refresh rate, which means that users will be able to track their entire surroundings.
Devin Reimer of Owlchemy is one of the first to receive the Developer Edition of Vive VR headset. Devin has confirmed receiving the Vive VR headset via a Tweet.
The Vive Dev Kit manual, is hands down the most wonderful manual I have ever read. Valve is awesome! @SteamVR pic.twitter.com/8ZWnqmABBb
— Devin Reimer (@DevinReimer) June 5, 2015
The VR headset market is gaining momentum and now there are a few more companies that have launched their headsets. Previously, Oculus was the only one that had a VR headset on offer but now Samsung and LG are offering the same. With the introduction of Vive, the competition may increase further.
Check out a short video of the Vive VR headset.
