During press release at PAX Prime, Valve talked about different things concerning new game titles, and then slipped a little news information about the Vive launch, saying the following: “Later this year, HTC will offer the first commercial Vive units via a limited quantity of community and developer systems, with larger quantities shipping in calendar Q1 2016.”
According to gamesindustry, these exact words were said by Valve representatives at Pax Prime, leaving us with an interesting question.
Why?
Few days ago sign up form for getting the HTC headset ended, so all the remaining VR devices will be shipped to last lucky developers. Another limited wave of Vive HMD’s will probably only be available at the end of this year. At the exact time when all VR enthusiasts were expecting to get their hands on HTC Vive before Christmas.
Although we don’t know who these people are who get the Vive this year, it probably won’t be regular mortal gamer folks like us.
The reason behind the shipping date postpone is unknown, but our guess is that it has something to do with their inability to produce enough VR devices for mass market. HTC has suffered some serious stock falls lately, resulting in job cuts and other drastic measures.
We can’t be certain if that’s a reason behind pushing the date close to Oculus release, but HTC is hanging on a weak string, and the only thing that can save them is probably Vive.
All of this basically means that Oculus Rift can still be the first consumer VR device that will be available to everyone. The exact release date is still hidden, but hey, how many weeks can there be in Q1.
Not many.
