Many game industry enthusiasts who were waiting for an update on one of the much-anticipated VR headsets to release, HTC and Valve's Vive headset, were disappointed when HTC had clarified that the consumer editions were not due until April next year.
However, the company has updated its announcement and came out with what could be an indication that the April rollout date will not be delayed anymore. Pre-orders for the HTC Vive will begin in February.
The original announcement from HTC, posted on the company blog, has been updated to reflect the February pre-order period. While there is no specific date mentioned in the update, observers expect that HTC will be releasing a new announcement about the new development soon, possibly mentioning the pre-order dates when the additional 7,000 developer kits (also mentioned in the post) roll out next year.
With the February date set for pre-orders, Tech Times surmised that HTC might be planning to roll out both the additional developer kits and announce pre-orders for the consumer version at next year's Consumer Electronics Show.
While HTC had plans to appear at a developers' conference later this week in Beijing, the company might not be ready yet to set a specific start date for pre-orders. This was due to the backlash against what some observers said to be a "delay" in the consumer version.
While HTC may have backtracked on the rollout date, the company said that the Vive's consumer edition has been ready for release. However, both HTC and Valve decided to fine-tune the device and had to postpone its rollout.
According to a Chinese news site, HTC CEO Cher Wang has been quoted as saying, "It was a tough decision to make, as we could have started to ship Vive this month, but after discussing it with Valve, our strategic partner, we decided that we can offer a more technologically advanced product if we postpone it for another quarter."
