The HTC Vive has been improved, details at CES

They’ve apparently made a ‘breakthrough’

Recently, Engadget published a report from an HTC Vive-centric developer forum in China that claims HTC has made a “very big technological breakthrough” on its Steam VR-powered virtual reality headset.

Originally, the headset was set for a limited December release, but the launch was pushed to April 2016 so consumers wouldn’t have to replace their initial unit with the superior iteration, according to HTC CEO Cher Wang. “We shouldn’t make our users swap their systems later just so we could meet the December shipping date,” Wang said. It’s like HTC is Apple’s evil good twin!

HTC will be detailing the breakthrough’s specifics at next month’s Consumer Electronics Show, a one-time mandatory destination for video game news. CES 2001 was the place where Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson revealed the original Xbox to the public, after all. It was also the place where Nintendo performed a heel turn on Sony, breaking its ‘Nintendo PlayStation’ partnership in front of a crowd.

It’s also possible HTC will reveal the Vive’s price at CES. Engadget writer Richard Lai pressed Wang for hints about the MSRP, but she responded with an anecdote that also served as an extremely round figure. Essentially, if you make around $1,700 USD per month, there’s an 80% chance you’ll find the Vive affordable. That’s a crazy response, right?

This could indicate that HTC isn’t totally confident in Vive’s pricing. If it was affordable, the company would be actively banging that drum. Or, this could also be a PS4/Xbox One situation, where competitors wait for someone to flinch on price before they start looking for ways to undercut on the base model. See also: Sony removing the camera from the PS4 to drop launch units to $399, beating Microsoft by $100.

HTC Vive to demo a ‘very big’ breakthrough in VR at CES [Engadget — Thanks, Jaden!]