HTC Vive

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pab
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Re: HTC Vive

Post by pab »

Apparently that price doesn't include shipping (so we just pay an extra US$100 for the pleasure of not living in the US). And then the concern would be that if it's being shipped form the US you'd be up for another 10% at customs, final price could end up somewhere around $1500 if they price shipping similarly to Oculus.
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DarrenM
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Re: HTC Vive

Post by DarrenM »

Aus price includes GST, US one doesn't.
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Re: HTC Vive

Post by pab »

Ah, OK, the article I posted said that relevant sales taxes weren't included in that price, they must have that bit wrong, that makes a bit more sense then, so no import duties.
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Righteous
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Re: HTC Vive

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That was referring to the US price, there's an * next to it. Each state over here has a different amount of Tax. Some have none. California has 7.5% on top. So if I ordered one here it would be $860ish. If the price includes GST for Aus, it's pretty fair.
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Re: HTC Vive

Post by DarrenM »

https://www.htcvive.com/preorder/

$817.27USD + $110USD shipping.

"This order is shipping from the US so applicable customs and duties may be charged upon delivery."

If we get slugged GST on import it would end up costing $1430AUD. I placed an order but I think I'll cancel and wait until they're available locally :(

Update: Seems we'll have to pay $50 import duty as well (if you arrange it online, $90 if you don't) so it's going to end up being somewhere around $1500.
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Re: HTC Vive

Post by DexterPunk »

That seems quite a lot. I thought the extra $100 US we were getting charged was for the GST. what's the extra $100 for then?

Oculus may be the better deal. Considering I'll be upgrading my R9-280x as well. Gunna get pretty pricey.


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Shaun
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Re: HTC Vive

Post by Shaun »

Vr aint gonna happen in 2016 for me fuck lol

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Re: HTC Vive

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I'm sure you're not the only one there Shaun. You have to wonder if it's all going to take off when the average punter is priced out of it all. There's always a premium to be an early adopter of tech, but at $1500 ish, it's still pretty much double what I was expecting they would be selling for. I'll get one regardless but it's going to be a costly exercise, and I imagine a lot of people won't bother.
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Re: RE: Re: HTC Vive

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Shaun wrote:Vr aint gonna happen in 2016 for me fuck lol

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Re: HTC Vive

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Shaun wrote:Vr aint gonna happen in 2016 for me fuck lol

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I'm goin to say VR isn't going to happen full-stop. Why would developers spend time coding it into their games/sims for a very elite few who own the headsets...?
in my opinion this will end up being a very small niche genre in an even smaller niche market. Which I for one am very sad about. :( :( :(
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Re: HTC Vive

Post by Shaun »

It's unfortunate but honestly i turn the pc on maybe once a month. Once console vr stuff becomes a thing maybe then I'll consider it but as i get older it is alot less likely lol

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Re: HTC Vive

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There's a Sony VR headset coming out for PS4.
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DarrenM
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Re: HTC Vive

Post by DarrenM »

DexterPunk wrote:That seems quite a lot. I thought the extra $100 US we were getting charged was for the GST. what's the extra $100 for then?
To ship it from USA.

817.27USD for the headset (no tax)
110USD shipping from USA (no tax)
GST on both the above
Another 100AUD or whatever it's going to cost for a clearance broker to get it through customs.
Then you have foreign currency fees on the credit card/paypal and whatever exchange rate they give you.

I'm starting to think it'll end up being more like $1600.

NFI why a company like HTC can't set up local distribution like oculus has. Maybe they have deals with local distributors that prevents it. They don't sell any of their phones online here like they do in other countries.

Apparently they sold 15k units in the first 10 mins, and shipping estimates have bumped to May. It may be expensive, as expected with first gen tech, but combined with Oculus, PSVR, GearVR, Google VR I'd say there's more than enough effort being put into it, and more than enough customers for VR to take off.

If they could have kept it below 400-500USD it could have been massive though. I guess we'll just have to wait for 2nd generation HMD's to see if the price comes down and for 2nd hand units to become more widely available. Voodoo cards were considered expensive when they first came out. They had similar issues of proprietary api's and exclusive games yet 3d acceleration managed to take off pretty quickly.

I expect the Sony one to be a lot cheaper, and without the huge shipping expense. They've stuck with a single panel. It's likely that going to dual panels is what caused the Rift/Vive price to blow out.
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Re: HTC Vive

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I'm not doing anything until I get back from overseas at the start of June. Will be interesting to see if they have setup something more reasonable by then. I'll get a lot of the cost back an the end of financial year anyway as it will be used at work quite a bit.

I'd be surprised if they don't set up some kind of local distributor.


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Re: HTC Vive

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Yikez, that has totalled up to be crazy expensive. The biggest issue for Aus is the exchange rate. Even if it were up around 80cents things would start getting a lot more manageable. It's not going to change any time soon though.

It's going to take a while for people's perception to change with regard to the price of things. Initially everyone was under the impression it would be similar to the dev kits and mostly we were all comfortable with that. No one bothered to adjust anyone's expectations and it's meant that lots of people had figured they would be able to cover the cost, now they can't, they're pissed.

I hope it doesn't die. I'd say it's going to be more popular than something like Track IR and that still exists and games support it.

It's just a shame that this will be out of reach for people for a while. 1500 bucks is getting into new PC money.
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Re: HTC Vive

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This is the first generation. High costs are to be expected. The shipping prices on the other hand, make no sense to me. I'll stick with the Rift for this round.
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Re: HTC Vive

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Yeah high prices are to be expected, but I feel like they need to be careful not to price people out of the market. I suppose Aussies are copping it more than almost anyone else, and we aren't a huge market. We need it to take off in the US and Asia. The better it does, the more competition, and cheaper it will get in future generations... and of course, more support for gaming, and even purpose built VR games will be made.

At work we are exploring the tech for medical education. The human body and organs being a 3D subject makes it an attractive tool to use compared to 2D, or drawn diagrams. Gaming is the driving force that will help make or break this tech, but there are a lot of other applications that would work really well in VR or augmented reality. In particular if it can be a shared experience between a group of users.
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Re: RE: Re: HTC Vive

Post by Shonky »

Righteous wrote: It's just a shame that this will be out of reach for people for a while. 1500 bucks is getting into new PC money.
There's the rub, how many need to buy a new PC to support the new PC accessory?

I'm not even sure economies of scale will kick in for vr for a long time if ever, to my mind its not going to be as common as a TV for example.
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Re: HTC Vive

Post by smithcorp »

They be crazy prices. The Steam integration makes HTC interesting to me, but there's probably only 3-4 games/sims i play that would make it worthwhile. I tried one out at an Audi innovation workshop at Fox Studios a couple of months ago and it was pretty amazing (they put you inside an engine, pretty astounding). I love the VR experience, but i did notice a fly-eye / screen door effect, seemed quite low resolution. I assume this will be better by the time the latest versions hit.

I was planning to build an Oculus ready PC this year, but I'm not as fired up as i was a few months ago.
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Re: HTC Vive

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Yep.

I remember a lot of the fanfare about the oculus years ago was that it was living room VR at an affordable price. Not much more than a decent monitor price.

I feel like we are a good cross section of the potential market here. Most of us have some kind of interest in simulations. This is a perfect peripheral device to aid immersion. Even if it's not for everyone, you'd think a larger percentage of the members here are going to be watching it with some kind of interest. When you see people here decide it's all too pricey, I think that's a barrier. But as suggested, Perhaps that's more so the case just here in Australia. Prices will drop if it's picked up in numbers elsewhere around the world. Apparently 15,000 units were sold in 10 mins.
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Re: HTC Vive

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smithcorp wrote:but i did notice a fly-eye / screen door effect, seemed quite low resolution. I assume this will be better by the time the latest versions hit..

It won't be massively (noticeably) different to a DK2 if you have seen those. A bit, you can get a close experience using some of the higher res 360 images on a Gear VR. I tried one after the other with the same scene, and there was a difference, but it wasn't ground breaking. You will still experience a sort of low res feel. But honestly, i feel like that all falls away when you're immersed in an environment. If you look for it with a critical eye, it's there. But it's not a still photo, and it's not even a 2D screen, it somehow doesn't matter as much.
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Re: HTC Vive

Post by Sarsippius »

DexterPunk wrote:I remember a lot of the fanfare about the oculus years ago was that it was living room VR at an affordable price. Not much more than a decent monitor price.
Oculus changed their strategy, originally they thought they would have to be the ones to push VR mainstream by having a 'good' HMD at a low price. At a certain point they realised that the momentum behind VR had built enough and other things like the GearVR would take up the lower end so they shifted their focus to build the best HMD they could which has pushed the price up.
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Re: HTC Vive

Post by Cursed »

DexterPunk wrote:I remember a lot of the fanfare about the oculus years ago was that it was living room VR at an affordable price. Not much more than a decent monitor price.
Just because it isn't there yet, doesn't preclude that it could still become a reality down the road.
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Re: HTC Vive

Post by Shonky »

It could become a reality for sure but there definitely isn't the user base requirement to push economies of scale which will make it hard, every PC needs a monitor, maybe only 1 in 10 will find a need for VR.
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Re: HTC Vive

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Shonky wrote:It could become a reality for sure but there definitely isn't the user base requirement to push economies of scale which will make it hard, every PC needs a monitor, maybe only 1 in 10 will find a need for VR.
Yep. It's not likely going to be something you see in most homes at this stage.
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