At Barcelona, mobile company HTC have just unveiled their entry into the virtual reality headset market with the HTC Vive – the result of a partnership with Valve and their SteamVR technology. It’s touted to be available to consumers in “holiday 2015”, but a developer version will be coming sooner.
“The Vive headset was developed in conjunction with Valve, creators of such ground-breaking games as Portal and Half-Life.” announced HTC. “Vive is powered by Valve’s SteamVR so plenty of games that take advantage of its capabilities will soon be available on the Steam service.”
First up, here’s the announcement video:
The specs on the developer edition are impressive – a 1200×1080 screen in each eye, powered by a 90Hz refresh rate. It’ll also feature full 360 degree rotational viewing support. There’s audio jacks in the headset itself, allowing you to plug in your own audio solutions. A combination of a gyrosensor, accelerometer and laser position sensor will provide tracking accuracy of “1/10th of a degree”, aided by two SteamVR base stations to track your physical location in spaces up to “15×15 feet”.
HTC have also announced the development of two VR game controllers, that users will use in each hand to enable interaction within the virtual word itself.
Content partners to help fuel the device are already being announced too. Google, HBO and Leionsgate are among some of the giants getting on board, but game developers such as Cloudhead Games, Dovetail Games and Fireproof Games also have VR games in the making.
Valve uploaded an outline of a headset for use on the Steam Universe demo signup page. Is this their #SteamVR device? pic.twitter.com/mO8z5Zas6g
— Steam Database (@SteamDB) February 25, 2015
Speculation is running rampant as to whether this is the device Valve plan to show off at this year’s GDC. A leaked image that Valve uploaded to their Steam Universe demo page looks awfully identical to the HTC Vive. Nevertheless, both companies will be present at GDC, which starts tomorrow, so keep an eye on PCGamesN for the latest news.