A surprise announcement in the VR industry can create plenty of buzz. Valve surprised the industry by suddenly announcing its Index VR headset. With a tentative release date of May 2019, this new unit will go toe-to-toe with Oculus and Sony. How successful this headset will prove to be, remains a big unknown.
The Valve Index VR Headset
Big was people’s surprise when Valve put an image online of what appears to be the company’s VR headset. Known as the Valve Index, there are still a lot of unknown factors at this time, Most of the specs remain a mystery, and the price point has not been provided as of yet. More information is expected to be made available in May of 2019. A shipping date is expected near that period, although further details have yet to be revealed.
According to Valve, their new VR headset will rival both Oculus and PlayStation. The decision to release this product is rather unexpected. Valve has been working with HTC to build the Vive headsets. Additionally, they also incubate technology to power HTC’s headsets. Building a new product without HTC’s involvement seems like an unusual deviation from the norm.
Given the recent influx of VR headsets, Valve will be facing an uphill battle. Numerous units are available on the market today. Most of them are also priced fairly low, given the technical specs they provide users with. Once more information regarding this product is released, consumers will be able to make a well-informed decision.
This new product can be rather significant for Valve. As the company still tries to push adoption of SteamVR, this headset may lock more people into this ecosystem, However, consumers have shown a keen disinterest for virtual reality hardware in general, Even Valve’s involvement may not be sufficient to make VR seem more attractive to consumers at this time.
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