Valve’s HTC (TPE: 2498) powered VR headset is closer to becoming a reality as the company announced Wednesday that it is opening its doors to developers for applications for the Vive development kit.
The Vive headset was first announced at GDC in March 2015. It was praised for having much better hardware than competing headsets.
Unlike the Oculus headsets, the Vive kits will be free to approved developers and will start shipping later this spring. An exact release date has yet to be announced, but Valve said that it is planning for a late 2015 release.
Valve requires interested applicants to fill out a lengthy application that details the project they will be developing with the kit. “Our goal is to support as many VR content creators as possible and, to that end, we will be distributing dev kits continually, with new units going out every couple weeks. However, supplies may be limited,” Valve said in a post.
But for the effort you need to put into the application, you do get some serious hardware in return. Valve’s kit includes the headset (which runs at 90 FPS), two handheld controllers, and laser tracking base stations to help improve the accuracy of the headset.
You can apply here for a headset.
