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Ars Technica: Valve’s long-rumored VR headset is finally real: the Valve Index, coming in June
- Thread starter Deleted member 3058
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I'll bet $600 bundle, $400 headset only, $300 knuckle only.
note: I've been wrong on every VR headset price.
Yeah. Gen 2 Lighthouse was supposed to cut costs significantly, Valve's their own manufacturer, and I'm assuming they're more interested in driving the SteamVR platform than profiting off the hardware. And double the price of an Oculus S would be a hard sell. Fingers crossed.
Index is a weird name but I'm in (assuming I could even get one in Malaysia). I've been holding off from upgrading my old Vive and Rift.
Also shoutout to Sweeney for locking in those exclusives. Now I have all this extra cash to spend on another VR headset lol.
Also shoutout to Sweeney for locking in those exclusives. Now I have all this extra cash to spend on another VR headset lol.
I'm excited to see all these new VR headsets. I want one for super hot and beat saber to use to get a workout with.
Alas I will have to see how the headsets where you don't have to set up cameras are.
While I don't mind needing to move my table for VR, there is no feesable way I could have cameras to track things set up at all times.
Unless any of the headsets without external cameras you need to set up review decently though, I might just wait and see what the ps5 offers. Either way, the future of VR is starting to look interesting to me.
Alas I will have to see how the headsets where you don't have to set up cameras are.
While I don't mind needing to move my table for VR, there is no feesable way I could have cameras to track things set up at all times.
Unless any of the headsets without external cameras you need to set up review decently though, I might just wait and see what the ps5 offers. Either way, the future of VR is starting to look interesting to me.
I sold my HTC Vive just before GDC anticipating a Valve Index reveal there. Glad to see it happening!
I was looking at the Vive and still couldn't believe how damn expensive it was for 3 year old tech. Even if this Valve one will be just as expensive, it'll be brand new. I hope the price won't be stupidly high like Vive Pro - I could buy it at around €500.
I imagine they'll ask in stores and in Steam. The cool thing about selling it on Steam is you could buy it with Steam wallet funds so you could sell virtual items to help pay for it.
As much as I love the Pimax FOV, FOV isn't everything - when I wondered if this could beat out Pimax for high end VR, I meant the whole package. The very believable rumor is that this headset has 135 degrees FOV, so shouldn't feel as cramped as the others. It could beat out Pimax by having a better display, more polished hardware and software, more features out of the box (hand tracking, wireless, passthrough AR, variable focus, as you said HDR, 120hz refesh, etc), more comfortable headstrap...
They aren't going to sell this without controllers, this is a consumer headset trying to get people to buy Steam VR games, the vast majority of which require motion controllers. Plus the new lighthouses aren't compatible with HTC's old Vive controllers, and of course people with any other headset wouldn't be able to use their controllers with this.
I have completely missed this. How credible are these rumours (source, cite)?
Valve explicitly confirmed they were working on 3 VR titles back in 2017
https://www.polygon.com/virtual-reality/2017/2/10/14580932/valve-is-working-on-three-full-vr-games
HL VR rumors comes from various file name/string references in different updates for different games they currently support.
Optional wireless is an absolute must. At least that's a good strength of the Lighthouse tech in that you don't need to transfer camera data feeds, at least not for tracking purposes.
Second: Please adopt the PSVR crown/open-visor comfort design. Everyone else like Samsung, Lenovo & Oculus Rift S have seen the practicality here enabling long play sessions comfortably.
Second: Please adopt the PSVR crown/open-visor comfort design. Everyone else like Samsung, Lenovo & Oculus Rift S have seen the practicality here enabling long play sessions comfortably.
From CoD page. So (un)surprisingly whole lot of nothing.
And even if it was, styling for discount block would likely just be price for the thing itself.
They don't change style (css class names) based on type, all products on steam have always used game in css.
It's very very silly to draw from, if you know anything about website creation.
In terms of pricing, it's of course a bit silly to speculate given that we don't even know any of the specs of the HMD, but I can't resist.
We have a few indicators.
- Lighthouse 2.0 base stations are $60 a piece in bundles of 5.
- The Steam controller is on sale at $35 from time to time. A single Knuckle has a lot more sensors in it, but perhaps fewer components total. Let's hope for something like $50 at cost.
- The HMD is rumoured to have LCD displays. It also needs lighthouse sensors (which have come down in cost, but probably still add something like $25 at least), 2 cameras, and the optics -- there Valve will probably use the improved Fresnel lenses they have patented. Also physical IPD, which adds construction complexity, and headphones. This one is by far the hardest to estimate, since we don't know anything about the actual specs and what level of sophistication it slots into.
Personally, as a result of this, the very lowest complete bundle price I can see happening if the HMD is more on the affordable end of the spectrum is $499.
The highest price I can imagine, with a higher-end HMD -- unless it has some amazing hitherto unseen technology we don't know about -- is $699 for the complete bundle. Because I don't think Valve is looking to make large profits on this.
We have a few indicators.
- Lighthouse 2.0 base stations are $60 a piece in bundles of 5.
- The Steam controller is on sale at $35 from time to time. A single Knuckle has a lot more sensors in it, but perhaps fewer components total. Let's hope for something like $50 at cost.
- The HMD is rumoured to have LCD displays. It also needs lighthouse sensors (which have come down in cost, but probably still add something like $25 at least), 2 cameras, and the optics -- there Valve will probably use the improved Fresnel lenses they have patented. Also physical IPD, which adds construction complexity, and headphones. This one is by far the hardest to estimate, since we don't know anything about the actual specs and what level of sophistication it slots into.
Personally, as a result of this, the very lowest complete bundle price I can see happening if the HMD is more on the affordable end of the spectrum is $499.
The highest price I can imagine, with a higher-end HMD -- unless it has some amazing hitherto unseen technology we don't know about -- is $699 for the complete bundle. Because I don't think Valve is looking to make large profits on this.
I can't find it right now, but there's a mention on the bottom right of this page: https://partner.steamgames.com/vrlicensing#DisplayAndOptics
Which, by the way, mentions a field of view of up to 120°, which is one of the reasons I've been a bit skeptical about the 135° FoV claim. (The other reasons are the physical sze of the HMD, and the fact that I believe it came from UploadVR :p)
I'm really hoping they've got a Steam controller V2 in there. With the new compelling options for VR controllers (touch grip buttons) and features the original controller had, they could probably make a pretty sweet controller that is a lot better. V1 feels a bit like a prototype: a new concept that they've seen how people use its features, and they would know what changes to make to improve it.
Potentially even more interesting could be dedicated gaming hardware of some sort (a handheld or a console thing).
I wonder when we're gonna have the first cryptic tweets talking about how excited they are for this or that?
Was checking out the Vive Reddits (for any nuggets) and I think I'm getting onboard with there being something very unique about this. Index, by itself, is a really stupid name for an HMD. I'm inclined to believe Index is somehow referring to something tracking related. Index has to mean something to make it the name of your HMD.
Haven't been any rumors, but Valve did get a patent for eye tracking that's done inside the optics tunnel (between the lenses and the screen).
This seems like the #1 thing a next-gen HMD should have. And yet Facebook also omitted it from the Quest. Makes me wonder if companies are having difficulties getting it to work with 100% of the population. Could be a real possibility there.
Definitely. If it's using lighthouse, and they haven't been able to get those costs significantly lower, 499.99 seems like the absolute floor.
Was checking out the Vive Reddits (for any nuggets) and I think I'm getting onboard with there being something very unique about this. Index, by itself, is a really stupid name for an HMD. I'm inclined to believe Index is somehow referring to something tracking related. Index has to mean something to make it the name of your HMD.
Haven't been any rumors, but Valve did get a patent for eye tracking that's done inside the optics tunnel (between the lenses and the screen).
This seems like the #1 thing a next-gen HMD should have. And yet Facebook also omitted it from the Quest. Makes me wonder if companies are having difficulties getting it to work with 100% of the population. Could be a real possibility there.
Definitely. If it's using lighthouse, and they haven't been able to get those costs significantly lower, 499.99 seems like the absolute floor.
That would be odd as one of, at least Gaben's biggest problems with VR is the high entry price.
07:25 if time stamp doesn't work.
$399 for headset, Knuckles and Lighthouse 2.0 emitters would be killer.
Going $600 or higher and you are still heavily in enthusiast-only market.
$149 for optional wireless enhancement (battery and antenna).
Going $600 or higher and you are still heavily in enthusiast-only market.
$149 for optional wireless enhancement (battery and antenna).
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I'm staking out the claim that Index is referring to something significant. And they'll also sell a budget model that doesn't ship with Lighthouse. Everything will have the diodes embedded, so you can add Lighthouse if you want the added precision. But if you don't care about perfect coverage/accuracy, Index will enable tracking that isn't reliant on Lighthouse.
I'm probably wrong, but I'm sticking my stake on this here unclaimed territory.
I don't know why, but $499 sticks in my head. I feel like it's a solid point with the whole "upgrade your experience" tagline, without getting in Vive Land's unreasonable pricing.
People cringe when this is said, because there's been a lot of incremental upgrades over the years, but in terms of launches, I personally suspect this is going to be the start of Gen 2 VR, a clear new era of VR development, new expected feature sets, etc. I'm not saying it'll sell as well as the Quest (that's going to really pull some people in), but I presume Valve hasn't spent this long pioneering VR design to come out with something comparable to the average Windows MR headset.
People cringe when this is said, because there's been a lot of incremental upgrades over the years, but in terms of launches, I personally suspect this is going to be the start of Gen 2 VR, a clear new era of VR development, new expected feature sets, etc. I'm not saying it'll sell as well as the Quest (that's going to really pull some people in), but I presume Valve hasn't spent this long pioneering VR design to come out with something comparable to the average Windows MR headset.
Yeah, if this comes in at 600 or less, it'll likely jump to the front of my list of wanted headsets. Hopefully we get some more details on things like specs and pricing really soon.
I think you need a killer app, low PC requirements, wireless and a fuss free setup under $300 to really grab the mainstream, and that's a big ask.
However, I do think there's a massive untapped audience in between earlier adopter and mainstream.
I agree with both of these.
I don't think Valve (or anyone really) is in a position to offer that "real mainstream" proposition at sufficient quality right now, but I believe there are a lot of people on the fence so far that the continuously growing VR library since consumer VR launch together with a high-quality decently priced platform could attract.
So will people with glasses need to wear glasses in this headset like the vive?
I hate wearing glasses inside a headset wish someone would do something about this
I hate wearing glasses inside a headset wish someone would do something about this
I feel like correcting for vision impairment would be way too expensive.
Maybe try contacts if you can?
It's crazy to think we could be a few days away from finally learning all about the VR hardware and software Valve has been up to for years.
It's not the most convenient method (if sharing), but there are places where you can buy prescription lenses and swap out the stock ones on your HMD (at least for Vive and Oculus).
I suspect they wanna drip feed things so they make the maximum news cycles, but it would be hilarious if they did a massive news dump on April 1st. That'd be total Valve.
I can't see this thing shipping with camera-based tracking. The reason? The friggin' controllers. The WMR headsets need those bright lights scattered all over the 'ring' to work properly, and unless the Knuckles ships with something similar, camera-based tracking is a non-starter.
In any case, though, hoo boy this will be interesting. The Knuckles alone are exciting, but if Valve really tries to make this competitive in terms of pricing, I'll buy it in a heartbeat, AUD exchange rate be damned.
In any case, though, hoo boy this will be interesting. The Knuckles alone are exciting, but if Valve really tries to make this competitive in terms of pricing, I'll buy it in a heartbeat, AUD exchange rate be damned.
It all depends on whether they could incorporate a cheap, solid state "lighthouse" emitter behind that transparent face plate. Probably isn't feasible, but if it were to be done, that's how it would have to happen.
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