Earlier this year, Valve and HTC emphasized that at least a few virtual-reality fans will be able to get their hands on the fruits of their partnership, the HTC Vive, at the end of 2015. However, hard news about the program , which combines a headset, two tracking stations, and two handheld controllers, has proven difficult to come by as 2015 draws to a close, and on Tuesday, we learned exactly why.
It’s a post HTC’s official blog (Google cache Here) revealed that the company is delaying the Vive’s retail launch until April 2016. No other hard details about the launch, including the exact release date, pricing information, or number of worldwide shipments, were included in the announcement. the.
Instead, the news post serves up that delay by talking about Vive-related initiatives in the near future, including a Vive-specific conference in Beijing on December 18, an appearance at January’s Consumer Electronics Show, and plans to make 7,000 Vive dev kits “available” to developers in the “beginning” of 2016. HTC will also host VR demos at upcoming exhibitions such as the Game Developers Conference, South by Southwest Communications, and the Sundance Film Festival.
This news follows HTC’s August downgrade of the 2015 launch from “full” to “limited.” With this delay, Oculus can wind up beating HTC to the market, if the Rift meets the announced “Q1 2016” launch window., while PlayStation VR may not be far behind with the “first half of 2016” announcement. Valve representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment.