Index VR headset will officially cost $999 for full kit, on sale tomorrow - Sensationalist Headlines

Vive pro starter kit costs ~$2000 here $999 really isn't that bad. I wonder how much it'll be over here though

Are they expecting to sell 0 of these? VR is a hard enough sell to begin with, considering you need a strong computer first, and it's definitely a luxury and not a requirement. In a market that's already hard for people to get in to, why make something so expensive? What VR needs is a base-model headset and controls for only a couple hundred, that a mid-range computer can drive. Something like the Vive, but a little more watered down.

€1,079 for the full kit, headset, controllers, and 2 base stations €799 for the headset and controllers with no base stations €539 for just the headset €299 for just the controllers €159 for a single base station. By buying the kit you save €77 than if you bought them all individually. You save €38 on the full kit rather than buying the headset + controller combo and two separate bases.

Half-Life VRee

Well, this sucks major ass. Valve has clearly decided to price gouge now that oculus decided to shoot themselves in the foot with the Rift S. I've had contact with someone who is/was working at valve in an area relating to VR, and he had told me that a while ago valve had previously intended to sell the headset/controllers at cost and make money through software sales, but that he wasn't sure what their plans were currently at the time. Unfortunately, valve seems to have decided to not go down that path. There are several lines of evidence that the current prices are way, way above the actual cost of the hardware. I'm pretty sure at least the cost of the controllers and base stations is probably roughly 50% more than what was originally intended. At one point, it was possible to buy the 2.0 base stations in bulk from valve's japan site (min order of 45 units) for $60 USD a piece (so maybe a retail cost of $80-$90). I know a game dev in Canada who's gotten all the various iterations of the knuckles dev kits and apparently early on the kits cost $200 for a pair, and up to the EV3's valve declared the value of the pair of controllers to be $200 at customs. So it would seem reasonable they were shooting for around $200 price point up until the rift S got announced.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/172830507502010368/572864979087392799/aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.jpg WELP

Yeah Valve, given the goodwill that they've hemorrhaged lately, I would have LED with the game announcement

With how mum they're being about this (apparently even journalists weren't allowed to see, let alone play the game), I wouldn't be surprised if this just ends up quietly buried and no Valve made full VR titles ever end up releasing. Either way I'm not holding my breath for a 2019 release if they're not even announcing what it is.

Valve what the fuck are you doing

Wasn't a full vive kit like 799 usd or something when it came out? This is a bit high. The controller tech seems reasonably expenive. The headset itself is 499, looks like they are targeting people for piecemeal upgrades. It might work, I'm not ready to drop money on a new headset and beefier graphics card but I am willing to ditch the awful vive wands. I hate the track pad so very much.

The idea of an incremental upgrade would be great if it meant you selling your original Vive. But by not including extra base stations for the cheaper price, you end up with just a useless VR headset you don't use and can't sell because it's useless without a base station.

enh. meh.

I must be missing something here. I get that it comes with everything, like not just the headset, but at that price point, who is their target demographic? All previous generations of vr headsets by them and everyone else are less than half of that price IIRC Further, the market is small, so when you want to expand it, you as a company have to take a hit by lowering the profit margins, even taking a loss if need be. Even further, there only a handful of enticing VR games, arguably might not make it worth it for some.

Tbh 120hz is pretty good to see for vr, fuck yeah

thats really weird. I was expecting the same for my country (Slovenia) since steam machines were never available here + link and controller was unavailable for quite some time yet the Index is available here for preorder

I definitely want those controllers. Even if they are no fully implemented - they look a lot more cozy than the wands.

oh cool let me just use my oculus touch controllers and sensors and i was planning to upgrade to this, oh well

Is it just me or is everyone here way too uppity over the price of it? It's got the highest FoV of any mainstream headset, the best refresh rate, a superior screen to the Vive Pro (same resolution but better subpixels due to LCD vs OLED), less ghosting, better controllers. The base HMD is only $500. Compare that to the Vive Pro which costs just $800 for just the HMD! (To be fair the accessories for the Vive Pro are less expensive, and the whole package with base stations and controllers costs $1100, more than the Index but less of a gap). If you want an affordable headset, get a Windows Mixed Reality headset. If you want a midrange headset get a Rift or Rift S or Vive. If you want a premium headset get an Index. This is like buying a GTX 1080 Ti instead of a GTX 1050. It's more expensive because it's a better experience.

Vive Pro: $1400 approx. with the extra $200 Advantage+ for commercial licensing. Controllers are $200. Cable for the HMD is $80. Index: $1000 approx. for the entire set, potentially including commercial licensing. Controllers are $240. Specs comparison: Index has the same resolution with better FoV, better refresh rates, and pass-through camera tech. So basically you're buying a Vive Pro and saving $400-600 per set you buy. If the Index had been out when we started our VR Arcade up, it would've saved us $8,400 to go full Index. Expect to start seeing these things pop up fast in VR Arcades.

how much y'all wanna bet the "flagship" game is going to be something along the same lines as The Lab also this price is absolutely ridiculous. anybody who already owns a headset currently has no incentive to upgrade anybody who wants to get in on the ground floor has several much cheaper options to go to it's not even inside out tracking it doesnt even have a wireless option ala the wireless adapter for vive like what even is the point of announcing this right now? it has nothing going for it that you can't get for cheaper in a slightly older unit for $900 bucks you can get the original htc vive AND the deluxe strap AND the wireless adapter, and this thing is still 100 dollars more with arguably less reasons to buy it. What games even support the AR overlay functionality? what games even support the knuckles controller? like shit, even as someone who has been waiting for years for those knuckles, i have literally no reason to buy it right now other than the slightly more comfortable feel. this is a big miss for me. maybe i'll pick up the knucks eventually but overall, there's literally nothing that this machine even has over the og Vive except for "potential" that may or may not be realized

It might be fully compatible with the Wireless option/TP-Link already. They talked a lot about backwards compatibility. The only thing that would be different would be the headstrap replacement and that's not particularly difficult to do. It has a lot going for it for businesses. Just the fact that the faceplate is now magnetic rather than grippies with adhesive glue means I can clean these things out in a flash and reduce downtime between uses of any of my machines and also reduces general wear on the headset. The headphones being not on-ear is one less thing I have to clean and one thing less I have to worry about. It also lets other people nearby hear, at a lower volume, what's going on in the headset. The passthrough will be better than just the typical chaperone because you can get it to fade the passthrough in when you get close to a wall, which is much more noticeable than the grid -- which will save us money from wall-strikes when people play Creed et cetera. Also, if they let us use it commercially without having to buy a service package then that also saves us lots of money. It's also just an overall better headset; the resolution may not be much higher but you see the grid less, which means effectively 'higher apparent resolution'.

Why is it that people have literally no concept of premium hardware How do you think 4K lifted off? It went from $1200 and above, to $300. The lab wasn't even a game, it was a free to play demo Literally the whole point was to show it off and experiment

I'd buy it for those reasons myself just to use it personally. It's a $400 cheaper Vive Pro, except more like a Vive Pro 1.5.

Higher field of view Higher frame rate Higher resolution I don't know what do you think? Did you even read the specs?

whats wrong with rift s? it seems a reasonable compromise between resolution and refreshrate is there a comparison chart with the specs off all vr solutions? i think buying it peace meal is pretty viable for users like me where the majority of there vr usage is for simulation titles but its still hard to justify spending over twice the cost of the rift s id put money on the "game" being boneworks which is still not much more than a glorified tech demo

Why buy a 1080ti guys My 550ti works fine!!!!

i did read the specs but with higher power also comes the necessity for your own computer to be more powerful. I just don't understand the need for this to be public now rather than in devkit phase so that there's actually, y'know, content that will have a reliably different experience on the Index than it would on the Vive/Pro.

A ha, this whole post clarifies the misunderstanding I was having. Granted it is still probably more expensive than what many casual consumers would want to pay, but the differences between this and the vive pro do showcase the benefits for the price you pay.

What did you plan on doing in VR, Bird Woman?