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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

cybereality
Grand Champion
We're working on updating the mobile version of the site to be more like the desktop version, which should resolve some of the previous issues with posts being lost and various bugs. However, I don't believe it was finished yet, so maybe some code got pushed early. I will follow up on this.
AMD Ryzen 7 1800X | MSI X370 Titanium | G.Skill 16GB DDR4 3200 | EVGA SuperNOVA 1000 | Corsair Hydro H110i Gigabyte RX Vega 64 x2 | Samsung 960 Evo M.2 500GB | Seagate FireCuda SSHD 2TB | Phanteks ENTHOO EVOLV

kzintzi
Trustee
[warning, in a mood - not sick for the first time in two weeks, and the wife has already said "thank gods I'm going out today" to me twice]

it's going to be very interesting to see how AR/MR is integrated into our lives in the next 10-15 years.. Microsoft (and Apples) constant reinvention (or outright purchase) of a Technology and trying to make it seem like they started the whole thing is fairly typical for them. sometimes it works (MS-DOS, Office, Visio), and sometimes it fails badly (Zune, Windows Mobile 8).

:smiley:  and before anyone gets on the "open office/Lotus Domino/<insert some esoteric community solution here> is better" bandwagon, alls I can say is I've been working in the Enterprise space for 20+ years and it's rarely (I'd say never but Lotus Domino/Notes was a contender back in the day) been a mainstream thing. sure the backbone of the internet is built on Linux (have 1000's of servers running it at work), but if you want lots of people to use it every day, it's windows (unless they're an artiste then it's OSX).

I suspect that Microsofts attempt will either work well and a lot of (uninformed) people will say that it's the mainstream VR and unit's like the Rift is the goto when you want quality (though the price drop will help there I hope, I like my Rift), or it'll be another case of them climbing on the bandwagon too late and they'll drop it for normal users. regardless of which way it turns out, we'll be visiting VR places, and having information overlayed onto the environment from here on. which is friken amazing regardless of who you are.

I am often reminded of a post I saw once back in the late 90's on the old Wearables pages (might have been Thad Starner who said it or someone similar) who was talking about cyberpunk being the coming reality, and they then dropped in a "as he finishes writing the post, he leaves the subway, selecting the tunes he wants to listen to as he merges into the seething mass of New York City and looks for his fixer to organise the next run".

it was a funny byline at the time, but it's kinda true.. the distopia isn't here (though getting closer maybe, distopia is a hard one to quantify coz it creeps up on you apparently) but the tech is definitely on it's way. or is it just me who still has those moments when you go "holy f#ck, I have a super powerful computer in my pocket, access to any information on the planet, and any movie, music or thing I desire"?
Though you are more than slightly incoherent, I agree with you Madam,
a plum is a terrible thing to do to a nostril.

Anonymous
Not applicable
Being 45 years old I still have those moments too. When I first started to get into PC gaming in the early 90s I started off with a 386 and was pretty gobsmacked when I built my next machine with (I think!) a P75. 75MHz 😮 😄 😄 😄

Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake and Duke Nukem 3D were all jaw dropping at the time in terms of eye candy, difficult to believe that now if you weren't there to see it lol

Zenbane
MVP
MVP
Another update:

Vive Unlikely To Save HTC As August Sales Plummet


Vive, HTC's virtual reality system, so far has been a drain on the company's finances.

HTC, a Taiwanese smartphone maker, extended a losing streak on Thursday, plummeting to 63 Taiwan dollars (US$2.09) at one point, down T$5.5, or 8.02%, from Wednesday. It was the stock's lowest level in about 2 and a half weeks. It finished at T$64, down 6.56%. The tumble is attributable to a 54% year-on-year fall in August group sales to T$3 billion. The disappointing results, announced on Wednesday after the marked had closed, triggered heavy selling.

Some market participants expect sales to recover as Google's Pixel 2 smartphone, which HTC builds, is on track for release.

https://www.vrroom.buzz/vr-news/business/vive-unlikely-save-htc-august-sales-plummet

In a stunning twist of fate... HTC is relying on the Smart Phone business to help them recover from the financial drain caused by the Vive.

I think that Vive owners who previously "didn't care what HTC's Mobile division is doing" had better start caring, and stat!

kevinw729
Honored Visionary

snowdog said:

....
Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake and Duke Nukem 3D were all jaw dropping at the time in terms of eye candy, difficult to believe that now if you weren't there to see it lol


Being of a slightly older age, but agree that I still have those moments - from when I remember the installing Doom, and then look at the recent relaunch - the amazing leap in quality over such a short period. Its hard to find another medium that has seen such a textural change over such a period.
https://vrawards.aixr.org/ "The Out-of-Home Immersive Entertainment Frontier: Expanding Interactive Boundaries in Leisure Facilities" https://www.amazon.co.uk/Out-Home-Immersive-Entertainment-Frontier/dp/1472426959

Morgrum
Expert Trustee
Doom and Battlechess sucked away so much of my childhood.
WAAAGH!

Morgrum
Expert Trustee
Just took this from the American Amazon listings.
Even Amazon prefers the Rift Atmos. 😉
In all seriousness im glad the Vive is still doing good in the UK.
What was
1,2, and 3?

Right Now the Rift without touch is marked as #3 all time in the states amd the Rift touch combi is #6 so the sales are split where Oculus is concerned.
lroq6kik46f3.pngqkbknxe13mae.png
WAAAGH!

Zenbane
MVP
MVP

Atmos73 said:

Back on Topic

The Vive jumps ahead of Rift sales on Amazon.com dispite being $100 more.



I'm glad you brought this up, because the latest Global Market report was released, and the Vive didn't even make Top 3:

Q2: Global AR/VR Market - Samsung, Sony, and Oculus are in the lead

The worldwide augmented reality and virtual reality headset market was up 25.5% on the year in Q2, according to IDC. Total shipments were 2.1M.
 
VR headsets accounted for 98% of the market and untethered units dominated over half the market with tethered headsets accounting for 43%, up from 34% sequentially.


Samsung (OTC:SSNNF, OTC:SSNLF) led the market with 568K shipped units and a 26.7% market share. The untethered Gear VR did decline on the year but a boost in average selling prices kept Samsung in the lead.
 
Sony (NYSE:SNE) came second with 519.4K units and 24.4% market share. The company’s PlayStation VR led tethered headsets.
 
Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) came third with 246.9K units and an 11.6% share. Facebook had dropped Oculus Rift prices by $100 to $499 in the quarter, which started a price cut trend.

Source:
https://seekingalpha.com/news/3293506-worldwide-ar-vr-market-25_5-percent-q2-samsung-leads

On a Global Scale: Rift just outsold the Vive.

Also note that Samsung's sales are for Gear VR which still runs the Oculus Firmware, and Oculus receives a percentage from each Software Application any consumers buy for the Gear VR B)

Zenbane
MVP
MVP

Atmos73 said:

Samsung 26%
Sony 24%
Oculus 11%

I'm only seeing 61%


The other companies make up the rest. Vive is somewhere in what remains after you subtract 61 from 100 😄

kojack
MVP
MVP

Atmos73 said:

Where's the figures for Vive?

Click zenbane's link, click the source link on that page.

jtxtb8ld3rwu.png

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