Update: Pre-orders for the HTC Vive are now open, but UK VR enthusiasts are facing a substantial shipping fee on top of the £689 asking price for the virtual reality system.
Going through the pre-order process reveals a hefty fee of £57.60 to ship the kit to the UK, bringing the actual cost for consumers to £746.60.
Original report: HTC Vive, the virtual reality system, will launch in the UK on April 5 priced £689, HTC and Valve have announced.
The consumer edition of Vive will be available to pre-order from today at 3pm, and will for a limited time ship with three VR experiences:
Tilt Brush, by Google: Paint in 3D space with virtual reality. Unleash your creativity with three-dimensional brush strokes, stars, light, and even fire. Your room is your canvas. Your palette is your imagination. The possibilities are endless.
Job Simulator: The 2050 Archives, by Owlchemy Labs: In a firmly tongue-in-cheek world where robots have replaced all human jobs, step into the ‘Job Simulator’ to learn what it was like ‘to job’.
Fantastic Contraption, by Northway Games in collaboration with Radial Games: Imagine walking around a grassy island floating in the sky, building a machine the size of a horse with your own hands, and then watching it roll out into the world.
The Vive consumer edition is billed as the “first complete VR solution” and includes two wireless VR controllers, room scale movement sensors, and an HMD featuring a built in camera and phone services.
Check if your PC is up to the VR task by downloading Valve’s helpful system checker.
Source: Valve
