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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

Zenbane
MVP
MVP
You are correct, bigmike. Valve makes the Knuckles, not HTC. We likely won't see them bundled together at this new price drop. Unless Valve is feeling extra sorry for HTC and wants to throw them another bone.

Zenbane
MVP
MVP

Atmos73 said:

The question now is will the Rift for £399 be the new norm? I think it will.

The bigger question:
Will Vivarians spend yet another year praising HTC for its ability to half-heartedly mimic every major action performed by Facebook and Oculus? I think they will.

Anonymous
Not applicable
It's in Valve's interest to have as many Knuckles controllers out there as possible, it's in HTC and LG's interest to have their headsets ship with the new controllers because currently the Rift's controllers are miles better. HTC and LG won't need to manufacture their own Knuckles versions, they can do a similar licencing deal with the Knuckles controllers as they are with their headsets, except order those controllers from Valve instead of making their own versions.

Zenbane
MVP
MVP

Atmos73 said:

Valve make the Knuckles Devkit. Valve 'might' release a full retail version. But Valve won't stop HTC or LG releasing their own Knuckle variation for release with their own HMD's. 


So you are suggesting that HTC and LG perform Patent infringement? lol

HTC has adopted the "copy the other guy" business model for so long that now it's become your own second-nature business strategy recommendation.

Anonymous
Not applicable

Atmos73 said:


Zenbane said:
The bigger question:
Will Vivarians spend yet another year praising HTC for its ability to half-heartedly mimic every major action performed by Facebook and Oculus? I think they will.


The bigger question now is - how long will OH compete with the AAA games coming to SteamVR? As the SteamVR user base matures in size Devs are less lightly to take bribe money to go exclusive. They'll simply be self sufficient as PCVR HMD sales hit 2 million. FB will need to dig even deeper to keep these exclusives coming.


Erm...this is precisely why Facebook are investing this money. They're basically carrying the AAA game content so far on their own until  big publishers jump in with their own AAA titles. This is what Oculus and Facebook want, this isn't a bad thing at all. And any AAA game publisher will have their content on Steam AND the Oculus Store unless they're Zenimax or Valve.

Anonymous
Not applicable
Facebook will announce that they're spending another $500m into VR development in October at Oculus Connect 4 but this will probably be the last time they need to do it.

BeastyBaiter
Superstar
Hard to say if the OH store will survive, it's a nice looking store and well integrated into the headset, far better than steamVR is. But it lacks content and ultimately that's what counts. In any case, it's good to hear Vive dropped their price too. I think OR still edges them out but the more we can get into VR the better. For me, I'd been eyeing a headset ever since the OR kickstarter days. I wanted to wait for the retail version and was willing to spend about $300 for it. It wasn't until the summer sale that I finally got what was expected, mostly. I view the touch controllers as a $100 addon, planned to resell them initially but I've since been converted. They are pretty nice.

Zenbane
MVP
MVP

Atmos73 said:

FB will need to dig even deeper to keep these exclusives coming.


Digging deeper in to ones own pockets is easy when your competitors fill those pockets:

Steams Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/Steam/

HTC's Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/HTC

The Vive's Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/HTCVIVE


Every Steam sale, and even this Vive price drop, ends up a Facebook paid advertisement. Which means that every Steam and Vive sale helps fill those Facebook pockets B)

In contrast, HTC will have to beg even deeper; turning to the 30+ companies giving them money in that Venture Capital Alliance.

Zenbane
MVP
MVP


Hard to say if the OH store will survive, it's a nice looking store and well integrated into the headset, far better than steamVR is. But it lacks content and ultimately that's what counts.

History dictates otherwise considering that Vive users flooded the Rift forums last year when Oculus temporarily blocked "Revive" from letting them play OH games:
https://forums.oculus.com/community/discussion/36620/oculus-blocks-revive-in-latest-update-good-or-b...

https://github.com/LibreVR/Revive/wiki/Compatibility-list

You are new to the forum but the arguments you've presented since your arrival are highly dated.


Anonymous
Not applicable

Atmos73 said:


Zenbane said:
The bigger question:
Will Vivarians spend yet another year praising HTC for its ability to half-heartedly mimic every major action performed by Facebook and Oculus? I think they will.


The bigger question now is - how long will OH compete with the AAA games coming to SteamVR? As the SteamVR user base matures in size Devs are less lightly to take bribe money to go exclusive. They'll simply be self sufficient as PCVR HMD sales hit 2 million. FB will need to dig even deeper to keep these exclusives coming.


Best I can tell Oculus has been wiping the floor with HTC. Certainly this large price cut should help as I am sure Vive sales dropped to about nil over the last several weeks, but remains to be seen if it will be enough to create some serious momentum for them.

Regarding games, HTC has been lagging way behind there as well as compared to those offered on Oculus Home. 

I do agree though this is overall a very good thing for the VR Industry. Thanks to Oculus for being at the forefront of this aggressive pricing.  I am sure HTC will like seeing their Vive starting to be discussed across the web now again, rather than the cricket chirping that has been going on the last several weeks.