Expect a ‘limited quantity’ of Valve’s VR headset Vive

When HTC and Valve unveiled the SteamVR-powered Vive earlier this year, the launch date was nearly as surprising as the reveal itself: The virtual reality headset will launch in time for the holidays, the companies said.

And it appears that continued patience is your best bet.

To be fair HTC is not doomed for breaking its pinky swear, the Vive will be out this year, but it is just that no one will see it until 2016. That’s the exact same timeframe that Oculus has targeted for the consumer Rift release, following a string of development kits and prototypes. Today at PAX Prime expo, Valve released a statement saying that “HTC will offer the first commercial Vive units via a limited quantity of community and developer systems” later this year, “with larger quantities shipping in calendar Q1 2016“.

Most won’t be surprised by the delay, Valve had been very quiet about the launch.

That sounds an bad lot like the way Oculus has sold its 175,000-plus developer kits for the Rift over the past couple of years, albeit with the commercial version rather than a prototype.

Add to that, when you’re promising to disrupt reality – to literally suspend users’ disbelief with a virtual technology that so perfectly plays the human eye and brain that biology genuinely can’t distinguish a difference – well, consumer electronics’ challenges rarely get any steeper than that.

So patience, here in the undulating foothills of VR, really does resemble virtue.