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HTC finally gives in! The Vive price cut has arrived

Zenbane
MVP
MVP
This news just came in...

HTC Vive Now $599, Gets A Permanent $200 Price Cut

all that technology came at a premium price that has, until right now,
remained at $799 for the Vive headset, two motion controllers, and two
base stations for tracking. Other than a few flash sales and minor
discounts it’s been stuck at that price.

The updated package, priced at $599 for everything mentioned above, includes download codes for Richie’s Plank Experience, Everest VR, and Tilt Brush on Steam, as well as a one-month subscription to Viveport. The Viveport service has over 200 apps available, but you can only pick five to get access to over the course of a single month. It’s sort of like selectively renting content.


Interesting news considering it wasn't very long ago that HTC executives explained why a Vive price cut was unnecessary. Those reasons seem to still apply today, giving rise to insight that perhaps HTC feels the pressure from the aggressive Oculus pricing in order to remain viable (and alive) in the high-end VR Market.

From E3 2017:

“we haven’t dropped the core price of the Vive because we think it offers the best room-scale [experience], hands down.”

O’Brien elaborated further on HTC’s perspective on the Vive’s price, saying that there are certainly price-sensitive customers who are looking for the lowest cost option, but there are also ‘value-sensitive customers who are willing to pay more if they feel they are getting better value out of their purchase;’ the latter is where a large portion of VR early-adopters fall, he said.


Sources:

https://uploadvr.com/htc-vive-now-599-gets-permanent-200-price-cut/

https://www.roadtovr.com/htc-explains-vive-price-cost-lowered-cut-discount/


*EDIT*
Latest damaging articles/discussions:

https://forums.oculus.com/community/discussion/comment/552854/#Comment_552854

465 REPLIES 465

BeastyBaiter
Superstar
Facebook has been a major player in funding touch games for VR and other VR exclusives, no real question about that but I disagree that the first AAA quality VR games came from them. The first AAA quality VR games are normal seated games that have VR support (eg racing and flying games). Somewhere around 100k DK1's and DK2's were sold to players of those games from what I've heard. That's not a trivial number given those are fairly niche genres with only a few million players total. FB didn't get involved until shortly before the DK2's started shipping and of course the touch controllers didn't exist at the time. Not sure anyone was even working on them yet.

Morgrum
Expert Trustee
They live amoungst us.
Hidden from view.
But the Sweds know how to find them.
They have been hunting them for centuries.

5ubc9t3zaakf.png
WAAAGH!

Anonymous
Not applicable

snowdog said:


Oculus are so far ahead of everyone else in terms of R&D for both hardware, software and SDKs that it's completely ridiculous. It's one of the reasons why I went for a Rift instead of a Vive and will be one of the reasons why I'm going to continue with an Oculus headset next generation too.

Agree completely with that!

Luciferous
Consultant

I do not think Facebook wants to be the new Steam. I also believe they are not really interested in the long term, in making hardware.

Their motives I believe in doing any of this, is to help promote VR and the technologies which will help drive a VR social network and persistent VR reality online.

Selling Virtual goods / advertising in a virtual socially connected world is where the real money will be.

'Ready player One' reads like a solid business plan for the future.










RorschachPhoeni
Trustee
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-24/smartphone-maker-htc-is-said-to-explore-strategic...

Deal with it, Atmos. Facebook is doing great. And HTC is doing not so great (to say the least).

Here's another one for you:
https://www.eteknix.com/bethesda-slaps-htc-vive-wrist-lying-fallout-4-vr/

What is it, HTC? Desperation?

Oh, and HTC claimed that there will be no price cut for the Vive. Two month later (after the Rift price cut), HTC is doing a price cut, saying it was all planned before. Are you kidding me?
You know what? This is desperation! HTC is knowing very well what it means to lose a brand war. They can't compete on the mobile market anymore, because of Samsung and Apple.
The fight between Oculus and Vive is also a brand war. HTC is not willing to lose it, so they cut the price to stay on top of the game, even if that means to lose money. And this is okay. I mean, it would be okay, if they could afford it. But they can't. Making VR mainstream needs time and money. But HTC is running out of time and out of money.
Excuse my bad english. I speak to you through the google translator. 😛

HiCZoK
Protege
Luckey and Carmack invented this form of vr. With head tracking and 2 warpen lenses. I still remember that duct tape headset and doom3.... 5 years later and I am palying doom3 with cv1 and touch controls!

Anonymous
Not applicable
Tbh I think LG are going to experience similar problems unless they can have their headset retailing for $400-500. They won't have the advantage that HTC has in having these things manufactured for a year and a half so will find it difficult to cut production costs but have added advantages in that they're going to be manufacturing their own panels and will be using Lighthouse 2.0.

Oculus will be making their price point $400 permanently at the end of March next year at least. Like I said before the advantage that HTC had with the Vive, their motion controllers and the Lighthouse tracking system, is becoming their Achilles Heel and the same may apply to LG too depending on how much cheaper Lighthouse 2.0 costs to manufacture.

Morgrum
Expert Trustee
Nope nope nope Zen go back to Old School Skeletor!
WAAAGH!

Zenbane
MVP
MVP

Morgrum said:

Nope nope nope Zen go back to Old School Skeletor!


Agreed. I was experimenting last night. In fact... there's a slight chance I was a bit drunk at the time. And by "slight" I mean, "holy crap I got really really drunk last night" 😘

Anonymous
Not applicable
I wish I could get drunk...I miss it lol 😄

Mind you, me not drinking for the last three and a bit years must have brought my tolerance level right down so that once my allergy goes I can get drunk like a normal person. My diabetes gives me a high metabolism so my body burns stuff up REALLY quickly. Back when I was drinking A LOT every day whilst working behind the bar I used to drink 20+ pints without a problem every day :blush:

If my allergy went tomorrow I'd probably get legless on 5 or 6 pints lmfao 😄