Valves Vive VR headset. (Made by HTC)

[Sunray]

HTC have made a nice looking bit of kit for Valve.

Said to be light and accurate to 10th of a degree and best of all backed by valve, a games and games platform company. So there might well be something decent in terms of content and therefore a reason to own one.

Can walk around the room too. Just need to move all the stuff out of it, or your tripping over the coffee table.

 

[Crispy]

Good to see competition for oculus. Whichever is the better system will be under my christmas tree.

 

[mwgdrwg]

Good to see competition for oculus. Whichever is the better system will be under my christmas tree.

Assuming they're both out. Have either got release dates?

 

[Crispy]

Assuming they're both out. Have either got release dates?

Valve have explicitly said Holiday 2015
All signs point to a similar release by Oculus. They'd be mad to miss that date anyway.

 

[mwgdrwg]

The competition between Valve, Oculus, Sony, Microsoft for things to put on our heads is going to be great

 

[fishfinger]

Half Life 3(D)

 

[kabbes]

Hopefully great. But let's not forget Kinect and EyeToy.

 

[Whagwan]

Had a go on the Vive last night at Virtually Dead... The whole experience was fucking great really, holding doors shut whilst zombies tried to break through, being in pitch black rooms when flashes of light reveals a zombies slipped it's chains etc.

The Vive section was pretty seamless (VR training to go and fight zombies) and fucking impressive, walking around a room dual wielding pistols splatting zombies was great. With the trigger hold on the Vive controllers it looks and feels like you are holding a gun. Interesting bit of gameplay when you go into a cave and have to swap your 2nd gun for a torch, which you have to hold over your shoulder x-files style and you can only see where it illuminates.

I felt like Chow Yun Fat with a gun in each hand and that can only be a good thing, really want one now...

 

[NoXion]

Hopefully great. But let's not forget Kinect and EyeToy.

I don't know about the EyeToy, but wasn't the problem with the Kinect the attempt to force Xbox users to have it and the creepy spyware aspect of it?

 

[Crispy]

I desperately want one, but at £940 for the vive and a new gfx card, I'm having a hard time justifying it to Sparrow

Maybe I can sell a kidney...

 

[kabbes]

Hopefully great. But let's not forget Kinect and EyeToy.

In the year since I wrote this, I had actually forgotten EyeToy.

 

[The Boy]

In the year since I wrote this, I had actually forgotten EyeToy.

I'd never heard of it. So you can honestly claim that you've forgotten more than I've ever known about gesture recognition hardware.

 

[The Boy]

Anyway, £940 is out of my league, fun as it looks.

 

[Crispy]

Anyway, £940 is out of my league, fun as it looks.

£690 if you already have at least a GTX 970 or equivalent...

 

[skyscraper101]

My main issue with these is the requirement to be tethered to a hardware device.

I don't know if I'm just a special case but I'm more into the idea of using a VR headset to watch videos in virtual reality cinemas, while laying in bed, or on a plane, or sat outside on the grass - having to be hooked up to expensive hardware is the main turnoff for me. It basically confines you to one space. Not to mention the price. I'm more about the Gear VR at the moment.

 

[Whagwan]

I have a gear VR, so tempted by the Vive though after using it last night. The act of sighting down a pistol etc. I have a GTX 970 already but I'll have to upgrade my chip and motherboard for it so I'm looking at a grand really...

£690 price isn't spot on though, add £60 delivery to that...

 

[Crispy]

I have a gear VR, so tempted by the Vive though after using it last night. The act of sighting down a pistol etc. I have a GTX 970 already but I'll have to upgrade my chip and motherboard for it so I'm looking at a grand really...

£690 price isn't spot on though, add £60 delivery to that...

You'll be able to buy it in the shops too.

 

[skyscraper101]

I have a gear VR, so tempted by the Vive though after using it last night. The act of sighting down a pistol etc. I have a GTX 970 already but I'll have to upgrade my chip and motherboard for it so I'm looking at a grand really...

£690 price isn't spot on though, add £60 delivery to that...

How are you finding the Gear VR? What phone are you using it with?

Was doing the numbers last night and it's definitely the more economical option, and the portable option too. I'd mainly be into watching Netflix, YouTube etc so I'm thinking that going for anything higher spec would be overkill.

 

[Whagwan]

You'll be able to buy it in the shops too.

Do you have a source for that?

I have a galaxy s7 edge, and got it and the gear VR a week ago. Haven't had a huge chance to play with it yet but it's pretty impressive. I'm working away next week in Ireland so will be giving it a good play with then...

 

[Crispy]

Do you have a source for that?

You can try out HTC Vive VR in UK shops starting today

you'll be able to escape the steep £57.60 delivery charge HTC wants for online orders and pick up the headset directly from the store

A limited number of stores (to start with)

 

[The Boy]

£690 if you already have at least a GTX 970 or equivalent...

I don't.

I'll be honest though, the point at which stuff like this becomes affordable to me does not lie between £690 and £940. It looks fun, but not a must have.

 

[Whagwan]

Cheers man.

 

[skyscraper101]

They're doing demos of the Vive at Currys PC World On Tottenham Ct Rd from 9-6pm each day. There's a properly set aside space with an HTC person assisting with the demo.

I popped in at lunch and there was a queue about 6 deep waiting to give it a go and I didn't have time to hang about but in case anyone's interested.

 

[Yata]

how do you walk around in a game? really big living room? saw one trailer that had people walking on some kind of circular treadmill? always thought it'd be walking around with a control pad and looking with the headset

 

[Whagwan]

It can track up to 15x15ft, when you approach a wall blue gridlines appear in front of you to let you know reality is getting in the way. Apparently walking with control pad gives people motion sickness, this can be overcome by having movement between walking areas on rails or using a cockpit of some kind. (Mechwarriors anyone?)

 

[Crispy]

Or teleporting. Point at a place, press a button and instantly be there.

 

[skyscraper101]

I finally had a go on the HTC Vive this just now for about 15 mins.

Played 4 demos, one where you inflate balloons and then punch them away (bit boring), one where you are in a pretend cartoon office, and you get to pick up office artefacts and do what you like with them - I chose to throw them around, eat some doughnuts, and 3D photo copy stuff (not very interesting), a space fighting game where you have to shoot at enemies from a space station platform (mildly interesting), and a 3D painting game which was quite cool being able to paint in 3D and walk through your own creations (very cool).

I still think the tech has a long way to go but this is a definite leap forward and I can't wait to see how the oculus rift compares. The immersiveness and transformation of spacial awareness is far more interesting than the actual games I've played so far. It does do a great job of putting you in another world.

 

[elbows]

The immersiveness and transformation of spacial awareness is far more interesting than the actual games I've played so far. It does do a great job of putting you in another world.

This is where Oculus might have dropped the ball. By launching before the hand controllers launched, they've completely missed one aspect of immersion from their launch range of apps/games. And people who've tried the 'walk about with it on' aspect of the Vive seem to rave about that aspect, and its completely missing from the Rift.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

I've just been catching up on this. Sounds like working stuff is now shipping, but cost of entry is still pretty high.

HTC Vive and Oculus headsets shipping (albeit slowly with Oculus touch controllers delayed)
GTX 1080 about to ship (Titan-class graphics and VR support for £400-ish)

2D hacks: Skyrim, Left for Dead, Mass Effect, GTV5, HL2 etc.
Platform Games: various (not really an interest of mine)
MMO: various people making noises, but nothing I could find that sounded real yet
Shooters: various, sounds like a lot of activity in this area.
Space Games: Elite and Eve Valkyrie already support VR. Star Citizen will support it (if it ever releases)
Sandbox: Phil Rosedale's High Fidelity just hit beta and Second Life's Sansar is about to start content creator preview.

Sort of looks like 2016 is early adopter time for those with space for a 'VR room', the dosh to buy the kit and a very large gap in their diaries.

 

[Crispy]

The 1070 will be the one to get on a bang:buck basis