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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

elboffor
Consultant
Keep pretending atmos and hanging on to every small thread you can find
This is my forum signature.
There are many others like it, but this is mine.

kojack
MVP
MVP
Scraped rankings from Amazon over time:
https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/6z26d7/amazon_sales_ranking_the_past_month/

u4xjlpd84z7j.png


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Headsets: Wrap 1200VR, DK1, DK2, CV1, Rift-S, GearVR, Go, Quest, Quest 2, Reverb G2

Anonymous
Not applicable
The Rift has been catching up to the Vive in unit sales since the first price cut to $599. I'm disappointed that the last price cut to $399 wasn't made permanently tbh.

Morgrum
Expert Trustee
Atmos if you look at the chart what they said was yrue at full price the vive was damn near unsellable.

It wasnt until the price drop that the Vive started catching up again for sales last quarter.

And I think we can all agree that the Vive needed to drop its price to compete.
WAAAGH!

Zenbane
MVP
MVP

Atmos73 said:

Infact it's leaving the Rift for dead.


I love that you're desperately playing around with Amazon.com Filters to salvage what is left of your failing product. This is what the Facebook/Oculus business model that you loathe so much has reduced you to 😄

On a Global Scale the Vive doesn't even Rank Top 3 for sales, yet Oculus Firmware supports the #1 seller and the Oculus Rift ranks #3; with the Vive not even placing...

The only things "left for dead" are the HTC Vive and Atmos' Math skills B)

BeastyBaiter
Superstar
I really never thought I'd see a console war between PC gamers and yet here we are. It will hurt the entire VR community if either the Vive or Rift fail. We need every major VR manufacturer and game developer to succeed.

Zenbane
MVP
MVP


I really never thought I'd see a console war between PC gamers and yet here we are. It will hurt the entire VR community if either the Vive or Rift fail. We need every major VR manufacturer and game developer to succeed.


This argument has been presented a lot over the past year, and it's still false. It will not hurt the VR Community if the Vive fails any more than it hurt the console community when Atari and Sega fail out of the race.

Many technology platforms have come and gone over the years; the Industry thrives just fine.

LG is replacing the Vive anyway.

Morgrum
Expert Trustee
Im hoping for neural inputs so we sont need screens............ 😘 😘
WAAAGH!

Anonymous
Not applicable

kojack said:



mmm The one thing this graphic doesn't show is that fact that Vive still not seeing the growth rates that it needs. Remember, it's NOT getting the same kick back as the Rift is for selling the unit + the software. So even if they are selling close to the same - they had to cut price for the unit taking down their over all income. That is the real evil all VR headset makers will face as we continue 🙂 The only real players will be the ones that have real strong already setup store eco systems that are going to pay off in the long run.

How many people post here about 3rd party headsets in the first place? How many people even come here just to say "well the (rift or vive) is good - but we need more content". 

Anonymous
Not applicable

Atmos73 said:

LG is not replacing the Vive unless it either comes out long before the Vive2 or has had a significant technological advantage over Vive2. At this time no one knows exactly what each will offer as with Rift2.




It kind of will though - see Vive will have to compete with the customer base that didn't buy the Rift - so they will be directly fighting for their share of the pie - if it's already shaky for Vive - they will in a way replace the current standings that the Vive is filling in for now. It all depends on who is making enough to keep a float and has enough to keep growing with it at the end of the day.

This is why I said steam should offer a kick back system with the current headset providers that team up with them and use their technology. Long as the customer base keeps buying software - then the store really shouldn't have worry about making such a deal with 3rd party headset makers really. Long as the headset makers can make some money or have a little room to play with -then it shouldn't be a problem to keep moving forward with VR and allowing it to grow as a community.

Why should they? Because VR is still young and has a TON more growth than that of the current 2d monitor is providing right now (everyone already has a monitor or can buy them on the cheap now a days). With that said - why NOT push it forward and allow it to grow to become a whole new industry that will take over and everyone will need to buy a new setup? It makes money/time sense to do it now and get your players in a row fast so the over all growth works out faster in the long term.

More users that have your device and access to your store - the more money you make - it's all chicken in the egg - but you have to give and take a little to make it work. You can't be 100% greedy all the time.