HTC finally gives in! The Vive price cut has arrived

[Zenbane]

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

[bigmike20vt]

given both valve AND oculus are part of the openXR standard, my hope is sooner rather than later the vive will be officially supported on oculus home. once this happens there really will be no reason other than some strange fanboy obsession that everything pro valve is holy and everything NOT valve is the enemy that BOTH stores wont survive / prosper.

for purely VR stuff right now i find oculus front end to be the better place to be in VR (their storefront sucks balls still however imo).... but my understanding is oculus charge devs the same 30% that valve charge to be on their store, and for anyone who moans about oculus store front exclusivity being evil...

well as soon as i can buy HL2 or other steamworks exclusive titles from oculus home, you may have a point, until then, they are both competing store fronts much the same as each other in terms of eithics imo.

(every time valve update their T&Cs, should you dare to reject them, you lose access to your entire account, hardly the open ethos that i keep getting told valve champion).

I STILL have not seen convincing proof that it is all down to oculus for the vive not having official support on the oculus store. IMO depending who you believe it could just as easily be valve not wanting vive users buying from another store front.

[Zenbane]

@bigmike20vt

Keep in mind that the Vive has VivePort as their attempted answer to Oculus Home. The new Vive price cut comes with a VivePort subscription.

The open standard will be cool, but it likely has a long way to go and its implementation is still theoretical for all parties involved. Open Platforms and Open Standards go against Competition. I have always found this interesting (not directed at you specifically)

• People say that Competition is good for VR
• People say that an Open Standards are good for VR

Yet:

• Open Standards enforce Collaboration over Competition
• Competition eliminates Cross-Platform compatibility
• Every thriving industry in history stems from Competition
  

My personal guess is that all the VR organizations will take part in the Open Standard just to shut up all the Carebears wanting cross-platform rainbow luvin. Things like arcade-style games and 360 video will be available on this open standard platform.

However, proprietary platforms and exclusives will remain the dominant force driving competition for years to come. But again, just my personal guess.

[BeastyBaiter]

I'm sure steam wants all the games sold exclusively through them. It won't happen, but that's what they want as a for profit company. The real question is how much of the Vive's and OSVR's sdk's does Valve control. I honestly don't have any ideas on that.

It certainly would be interesting to see OH officially support the Vive and OSVR HMD's. I think their goal is to make money off game sales rather than the physical headsets, so it would make sense to do it if Valve hasn't embedded themselves too deeply in non-OR VR devices.

[Zenbane]

Atmos73 said:

Its a HUGE problem with the Oculus business model.

yeah yeah... you call everything a "huge problem with the Oculus business model," right up until HTC copies it. Then it's the greatest thing in your kitchen since sliced bread 😛

Atmos73 said:

As soon as OH goes the way of OpenXR people can buy any HMD without the need for Revive. The Vive with Lighthouse has allways been more popular over the Rifts constellation system despite the Rifts more competitive price. How is FB going to stop the slow decline in Rift sales when Vive has direct access to the expensive AAA titles FB are investing in? OH can't survive with OpenXR, the Rift can't survive with Constalation and with Valve, Zenimax and HTC all throwing down AAA titles it's hard to see where FB will go In 2018.

... and once logic fails, and wishful thinking isn't enough, pure Fantasy arrives 😄

[Zenbane]

Atmos73 said:

I've always from day one said Oculus has problems with its business model.

Yes... and then you end up praising that exact business model when HTC literally copies it.

Like here,
"How is FB going to stop the slow decline in Rift sales when Vive has
direct access to the expensive AAA titles FB are investing in?"

Before HTC was able to copy FB's AAA titles, you would complain about the "walled garden approach." Now you're here bragging because HTC finally bought a ladder 😄

[Anonymous]

BeastyBaiter said:

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.

Whilst the Oculus Store does 'lack content' in terms of the QUANTITY of VR games available to buy compared to the VR games available on Steam the IMPORTANT difference between the Oculus Store and Steam - and the reason why so many Vive owners were having kittens about not being able to play games available from the Oculus Store until Revive came along - is that in terms of QUALITY the Oculus Store is so far ahead that it's quite ridiculous.

It's part of the reason why my game is going to be exclusive to the Oculus Store. I don't want my game being lost amongst a sea of shite games that you find on Steam, particularly when all of the proceeds of my game are going to cancer research (as long as Oculus are prepared to donate their 30% cut of sales being donated too).

The Oculus Store will do fine once everyone adopts the OpenXR standard because they'll continue to curate their store properly. If a game is a steaming pile of old pants you won't find it available to buy from there. Valve have been damaging the PC game ecosystem for YEARS. Before Greenlight became a thing Steam used to curate their store properly the way that Oculus do now, but as soon as Greenlight happened it all went out of the window...and things haven't improved with Steam Direct either. If anything things have got WORSE! 😮

Mind you, even if I wasn't giving my game proceeds to charity I'd still avoid Steam out of principal. They've done FUCK all with the money I've given them for YEARS. No Half Life 2 VR. No Half Life 3. No Left 4 Dead 3. All they've brought us is The Lab, which although it's a fantastic introduction to VR and Room Scale, it's a tech demo. Yes, they're working on 3 VR games but I won't hold my breath tbh given how disappointing they've been for so long and given Valve Time too.

Valve are a complete bunch of cunts as far as I'm concerned and have been for years. Gaben can suck my fucking cock.

[Anonymous]

Atmos73 said:

Zenbane said:

Atmos73 said:

Its a HUGE problem with the Oculus business model.

yeah yeah... you call everything a "huge problem with the Oculus business model," right up until HTC copies it. Then it's the greatest thing in your kitchen since sliced bread 😛

I've always from day one said Oculus has problems with its business model. The same way I backed Blu-ray when most people wanted cheap HD-DVD plays. I just knew Sony, Disney and Fox couldn't loose. As soon as Warner Bros caved in it was game over. The same way if Oculus support OpenXR its game over.

I honestly think you're more than a little insane. Just think about what you're saying for a minute.

Facebook have funded developers to the tune of $500m so far (not $500m each year like I said earlier, I had a brain freeze lol) and will most likely fund developers using another $250m, they'll announce this in October. That's three quarters of a billion smackeroonies. Why are they doing this? NOT TO SELL HEADSETS. They're making bugger all money on selling headsets since they released the Rift.

What their business model is, that you seem to have a bizarre problem with, is to make money from software sales. Console manufacturers have been doing this for YEARS, it's the same business model. But unlike Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo Oculus aren't charging developers to submit games or charging developers a licence fee. This is being done for free, because THEY WANT AS MUCH GOOD QUALITY SOFTWARE IN THEIR STORES AS POSSIBLE SO THAT PEOPLE BUY IT AND THEY MAKE MONEY.

They're supporting OpenXR BECAUSE THEY WANT AS MANY HEADSET OWNERS AS POSSIBLE TO USE THEIR STORES AND GIVE THEM MONEY.

Now, Oculus Rift headset owners are more likely to use the Oculus Store but when OpenXR is adopted by the industry they want good quality content on their store to be available to buy, including exclusives. This is the console business model again. And it works. There is NOTHING wrong with this business model, it's been successful for DONKEY'S YEARS.

[pyroth309]

Yea I've been pretty annoyed with Steam myself. Valve should be using the billions they rake in to create AAA PC exclusive games to give the exclusive chasers/consolers a reason to go PC and grow the market. In the last couple of years nearly every PC game goes to PS4 and is the reason PS4 has done so well. Why buy a mid range PC when every significant game outside of Strategy and Niche Simming is on PS4 already for 300 bucks. Valve is just collecting a check and doing little. Obviously there's still plenty of reasons to own a PC at the enthusiast and even the budget levels if you like the indie/lower graphical games.

[Synthetic]

Its going to be an interesting christmas... especially if fallout and skyrim come thru with the VR modes

this is the first ive heard of openXR .... thanx for the info....

cheers beers

[Zenbane]

Atmos73 said:
I've always from day one said Oculus has problems with its business model. The same way I backed Blu-ray when most people wanted cheap HD-DVD plays. I just knew Sony, Disney and Fox couldn't loose. As soon as Warner Bros caved in it was game over.

This whole DVD thing stayed in my head so I gotta response lol...

• The Internet was mainstream by 1993.
• The first DVD was released in 1997
• Blu-ray was released in 2006

All physical media is becoming obsolete thanks to Internet-based Services and digital media. People started burning their audio and video physical media to harddrives well before Blu-Ray was released. And most physical media comes with a download certificate for its digital counterpart.

Point being... taking sides in the HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray war, and bragging about it, is on par with picking sides in a Tennis Shoe battle in an era where the primary form of Transportation is the Motor Vehicle, which is most enjoyable while wearing Flip Flops  😐