Viva Vive! From HTC
For all the excitement that’s surrounded the impending arrival of VR, there was minimal chance of the devices being cheap. It’s a common mantra that new technology is always expensive initially, barring very few exceptions. But the $599 price of the Oculus Rift gave many people sticker shock when it first went up for preorder a little over a month ago, despite some not-so-subtle warnings from Oculus creator Palmer Luckey about its high price. Considering preorders keep selling out, though, Oculus — and Facebook, by extension — won’t be fretting about whether it will be profitable in the near future.
Given the comparisons (and jokes) to the PlayStation 3’s launch price back in 2006, the Oculus Rift’s price made some justifiably question whether VR really is the future. There’s a good reason why Facebook and Oculus have been counting on more than video gaming to help sell the headset. They have to prepare for a future where they’ll need to sell it to an audience beyond the early adopters of new technology with deep pockets. Of course, that will depend on how affordable VR technology can become in the near future without any company involved taking too much of a financial loss, but it’s too early to determine whether that can happen.
But those questions especially apply to the HTC Vive, a device that was expected to arrive with a premium price — and they delivered. HTC confirmed that it will retail for a whopping $799 when it arrives in April, a price that once again generated plenty of divisive reactions around the internet — though without as much of the snarky humor. (That’s likely due to its announcement happening on a Sunday morning rather than a weekday, just in case you were hoping — or fearing? — that internet snark was losing its luster.) For some, it’s priced at exactly what they expected, while others believe it will doom it to an incredibly niche market.
In reality, it depends on how it’s received by the aforementioned early adopters, and whether HTC has already made plans regarding how they’ll sell it to a wider market in the future. But in the latter case, they have a steep hill to roll down until its asking price becomes palatable. At $799, the Vive’s starting price doesn’t only go far beyond the PS3’s, but also the Neo Geo and 3DO, which started at $650 and $699 respectively. Beyond that not making it easy to make jokes about, outside the rudimentary “doomed” and “VR had a good run,” that also highlights precisely how much of a luxury item this will be, regardless of whether you want to adjust those 90s console prices for inflation.
Those who purchase it will at least have software to show it off with, even if they won’t provide much content. Both Job Simulator and Fantastic Contraption will come bundled with Vive for a limited time. The former is a simulation game where robots have taken some jobs of humans in the year 2050, where players can ideally make mundane tasks fun. Those jobs will include being a Gourmet Chef, Office Worker, and a Convenience Store Clerk. They have their work cut out for them in making those enjoyable. Incidentally, the existence of this game did make for one clever joke.
Meanwhile, Fantastic Contraption sounds exactly like a tech demo, where players will build a, well, fantastic contraption and use it to explore the game’s world. Both titles could offer something worthwhile, but they’re clearly here to make spending that premium price a little easier to stomach.
There’s certainly a high-end market for Vive, just as one exists for Oculus Rift. But HTC (and Valve, to a lesser extent, given their partnership with Steam VR) shouldn’t set their expectations too high with that price, considering its way, way above mass market standards. These prices don’t dispel the notion that VR is the future, but that won’t be arriving as soon as some expected.
Meanwhile, all eyes will soon be on Sony to see how they’ll price PlayStation VR. Sony won’t be luring in the technology aficionado audience like the VR competition, since the PS4 is nowhere near as powerful as top-of-the-line PCs. Because of that, though, a good chance of it being priced accordingly (i.e. less than $400), which would bring in at least a modicum of the wider audience, which should be good enough for its start. They’ll need more good software to show off its capabilities, even if some of it can be played without the headset.
There’s still plenty of uncertainty about the future of VR, and whether each company involved is capable of attracting a significant audience beyond those willing to spend big money for it. This won’t be a concern in the short term, but it’s certain to be an issue in the next few years. Prices always come down, but whether they’ll drop far and fast enough will be the biggest question going forward.
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Geoff
News Editor | Geoff is some nerd who writes for a blog and thinks he's knowledgeable. He write a lot about video games, but is capable of writing about other subjects, too. Twitter
