HTC and Valve have delayed their new virtual reality headset

If the Steam Controller taught us anything about Valve, it’s that the company is willing to do as many revisions as it needs to in order to ensure that its hardware is perfect. Even though HTC is doing most of the work with the Vive, you can still tell that the company is partnering up with Valve based on the fact that the virtual reality headset is already getting a big redesign. Even though this is causing delays, I’m willing to give HTC and Valve as long as they need to make sure the Vive is as close to perfect as they can make it. 

While the HTC Vive’s room-scale VR experience is one of the best available today, the device itself still needs to undergo a significant metamorphosis from development kit to consumer-ready product. Details about exactly what changes we’ll see in the consumer device have been slim but we’ve gleaned new info from HTC. The Vive Developer Edition system provides an impressive experience, but it isn’t quite ready for the consumer market. Speaking with HTC’s Brian Lowe, Executive Producer working on VR content, Road to VR has learned about design changes coming to the consumer HTC Vive which is set to launch in Q4 of 2015. Ergonomics may be among the most significant changes. Both the Vive headset and controllers leave much to be desired in this department compared to competitors, and Lowe says that it’ll see attention for the consumer version. On the headset side, Lowe says the Vive will get a new mounting/strapping system which will replace the current flex straps and velcro with something more rigid. He compared it to a bike helmet with a ratcheting adjustment that hugs under the crown of the head, making it sound similar to the mounting mechanism on Sony’s Morpheus headset.