HTC Vive VR Headset Finally Has a Release Date

Ever since the HTC Vive was first announced at MWC 2015, we've been keen to learn about the price and release date of the headset. It's one of the few devices out there that can provide real competition to the Oculus Rift, as we noted in our hands-on first impressions of the Vive.

The headset was originally supposed to launch on December 8, but later was delayed and was expected sometime in 2016. Now, HTC has published an update on its blog, to clear up "confusion and speculation" surrounding the launch of the device, and says that the Vive will be commercially available from April 2016.

On the blog, HTC states that it will first distribute new units to developers, before finally making the Vive available to buy - unlike the Oculus Rift, whose developer kits are available for anyone to purchase (and many of these units have ended up in the hands of consumers), the Vive has only been distributed in a very limited fashion.

According to the post, Valve is hosting a developer conference in Beijing on December 18, and launching the second generation developer kit at CES which will take place in January 2016, and will also expand demo tours - most recently, we saw the Vive being shown to people at Delhi Comic Con.

As of now, there is still no information about the price at which the Vive will be sold, though most speculation currently puts the price at around $500 - take that with a pinch of salt though, as the official price of the frontrunners in the VR movement is still not clear, and there's plenty of time for things to change even now.