HTC and Valve are playing catch-up a bit with Oculus in terms of getting their virtual reality headset out in the wild, but today they began shipping their developer hardware, which by all accounts is much further along than Oculus VR’s first kick at the can following their original Kickstarter campaign.
The Valve/HTC Vive developer kit includes a Vive headset, along with two Lighthouse base stations which is a passive component of the input mechanism that works with the two wireless Steam VR controllers to complete the player’s sense of immersion. Also included are the requisite cables and a set of instructions, all of which is designed to set developers up with exactly the kind of kit Valve and HTC are looking to ship to consumers later in 2015.
Dev kits are rolling out in very limited quantities to start, with Valve specifying that they’re going out to a range of folks, including major film studios, top-tier AAA video game developers and indie creators new to game creation. Some are already posting their unboxing images, as you can see in the tweet embedded above.
Our own John Biggs took the Vive for a test ride at Mobile World Congress earlier this year, and was incredibly pleased with the results. The headset has wowed a number of early testers, which is good news for those looking for more than a one-pony race in the high-end consumer VR space.