A new player has joined the virtual reality wars as Valve and HTC have announced that they will collaborate on the creation of Vive, a virtual reality headset that will use Valve’s SteamVR technology. A “developer edition” of Vive will be available this Spring and a consumer version is expected to launch this Fall. The Vive will be on display at this week’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco where it will join a very crowded marketplace that includes the Oculus Rift, the Samsung Gear VR, and Sony’s Project Morpheus. The Vive’s official website includes more details about the device, including a claim that it will eliminate the “jitter” found in other headsets:
A 1,200 by 1,080 pixel screen in front of each eye, with refresh rates of a blistering 90 frames per second, displays photorealistic imagery that fills your field of vision in all directions, eliminating the jitter common to previous VR technologies and transporting you to another world.
A special two-handed controller will allow players to interact with objects in the simulation and optional SteamVR “base stations” can be paired with Vive to create a 15×15 area that players can use to walk around their virtual world. So who will be creating these worlds? Valve has partnered with three developers (so far) to create content for Vive including Cloudhead Games (The Gallery: Six Elements), Dovetail Games (Microsoft Fight Simulator), and Fireproof Games (The Room).
More will surely sign up in the coming days.
