Pre-orders for HTC's VR headset Vive start February 29, ships in April
HTC Vive pre-orders to start on February 29 — Pre-orders for HTC's virtual reality headset Vive will open on February 29, boss Cher Wang confirms — HTC will start taking pre-orders for Vive, its virtual reality headset …
Context & Ripple Effects
This announcement closes out a rough stretch for HTC's VR timeline: the company had already pushed the Vive's launch into April and promised roughly 7,000 dev kits for early 2016 after the original slip. Cher Wang confirming a February 29 pre-order date signals the delayed schedule is holding, with pricing details following days later at $799 with an early-April ship window.
The timing matters because HTC is no longer racing alone — Oculus began shipping consumer Rift units in late March, meaning the two flagship PC-tethered headsets hit buyers within weeks of each other.
First-order effects
- Buyers get a firm commitment: pre-orders open February 29 and hardware ships in April, ending months of uncertainty since the December delay.
- Oculus' March 28 Rift shipments land first, giving it a head start on the same early adopters HTC is courting.
Second-order effects
- With both headsets priced in the same premium tier, the competition shifts from specs on paper to content libraries and bundled experiences at checkout.
- A confirmed April ship date forces developers holding dev kits to finalize launch-window titles, since the consumer install base finally becomes real.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, each Vive generation repeats this cadence — the Vive Pro later repriced at $799 without controllers and the eye-tracking-equipped Vive Pro Eye show HTC iterating annually on the same tethered-headset formula rather than resetting it.
- The 2016 launch establishes the template of premium PC VR as a two-horse race between HTC and Oculus, with pricing anchored near $799 for years afterward.
The trend: Consumer VR is moving from developer kits and slipped dates to a real retail market, with HTC and Oculus setting a premium price anchor that subsequent Vive generations kept revisiting.