HTC Vive Gets $200 Cheaper Following Similar Oculus Rift Tactic

Last month, Oculus decided to slash the price of its high-end virtual reality headset, the Rift in order to make it more appealing to mass consumers. This time, it’s HTC’s turn to make its incredibly expensive Vive unit cheaper by cutting $200 from its price tag. Now, customers can experience the highest quality VR offering in the market for only $599.

It’s worth pointing out that even with the discounted price, the Vive is still a good $200 more expensive than what the Rift costs right now. Oculus is still selling its headset for $399 as a supposedly limited-time offer, but there’s no telling until when this is going to be the case. What’s more, there’s also the PlayStation 4 VR, which costs the same amount and is currently outselling both the Vive and the Rift, Time reports.

Then again, there is a reason for the Vive’s higher price, since it is currently the most powerful VR device in the market. Rendering some truly spectacular images in virtual space, it also has a decent library of titles. During this discount phase, HTC is even throwing in some nice VR apps, including Tilt Brush by Google and the EverestVR.

There are also other reasons for why HTC is trying to sell as many units of the headset and generate buzz around VR as much as possible. As Forbes notes, there’s the matter of increased competition, the low rate of sales, and upcoming platforms that might just boost VR visibility over the coming years.

So far, it would seem that the VR market isn’t really taking off as well as companies had hoped, but there is still a chance for the industry to boom. HTC is betting big on this eventuality. Otherwise, its VR products are going to end up a bust.