Consumers & Enterprises to Benefit as HTC Cuts Price of Vive VR System
Of the reasons consistently used to explain the slow adoption of virtual reality, the one that seems to come up most is cost. The truth is, most consumer PCs hanging out in homes around the country don’t have the computing power required to run top level VR and even for those who have potent PCs headsets aren’t cheap.
The good news is they’re getting cheaper. What’s still to be determined is if it will be enough.
Coming on the heels of a recent Oculus Rift discount, HTC has announced a slash in the price of its own headset, knocking two hundred bucks off the Vive. While competitors, it does seem like both the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive are experiencing similarly sluggish growth, something that other headsets, despite a lack of public acknowledgement, are experiencing as well.
Last year, with the release of the Google Daydream and Playstation VR, there was the general thought that cheaper alternatives would open the floodgates and inexpensive virtual reality experiences would lead to the kind of wide-scale consumer buy in that many in VR expected long ago.
Although on the face of it this recent price cut would seem to be about competition, the truth is that all VR headsets are still trying to penetrate the market. And while the Vive is a great headset, one has to ask if at the new price of $599, it’s still outside of what someone who is not already a VR enthusiast may pay.
Of the many strengths of the Vive, one is that it allows for room-scale tracking. It’s why we use the Vive at VRPlayin as its an ideal headset, not only for home use, but especially for a virtual reality arcade. But for individual consumers, even those with large living rooms, six hundred bucks may still seem like a steep price to pay, despite how great a headset is.
Even with these kinds of price reductions, the question still has to be asked, if headset sales continue to be sluggish, what does that mean for the future of virtual reality?
While it’s easy to think of gaming as the main virtual reality experience, as we’ve covered in this space before, many of the areas where VR can have the biggest influence may not be in the consumer space, but instead for industrial use, education and more.
As headset prices drop, it’s not hard to see how virtual reality in the areas outside of gaming will grow.
And for those who want access to VR but would rather not drop down big bucks for a home setup, you’re always welcome to come visit us at VRPlayin.