Want To Try VR? HTC Vive Coming To Retail Locations Near You

The HTC Vive and Oculus Rift have been getting rave reviews from the gaming press, but one of the largest barriers to entry for most consumers is not an easy one to surmount: What’s VR really like with the HTC Vive or Oculus Rift?

Well, according to Polygon, consumers will get the chance to find out without having to spend $799 on an HTC Vive.

The Microsoft and GameStop partnership is slowly rolling out a few high-profile retail locations will get the HTC Vive display set up before rolling out to about 30 Microsoft stores and reportedly 10 GameStop stores later this year. First up is the Microsoft flagship store in New York City, followed by Microsoft stores in City Creek Center Utah, Bellevue Square in Washington state, and Park Meadows Mall in Colorado. The HTC Vive will be available at these locations for players to try out, along with select experiences curated from Steam’s ever-expanding library of VR titles.

You’ll need an entire room, and a chunk of time, to get your HTC Vive VR playpen set up https://t.co/hx8dTBhvol https://t.co/yCJgAGDsDM

— WIRED (@WIRED) April 8, 2016

The HTC Vive came out just last week, shipping to pre-order customers, and the Oculus Rift started shipping earlier this month. Both VR headsets are premium experiences mostly for early-adopter types eager to try out the first wave of consumer model VR headsets. The price tag and hefty system requirements, however, will keep the HTC Vive and the Oculus Rift out of the hands of most consumers for a while still. The Sony VR platform is set to ship later this year, offering one of the first truly consumer-friendly VR experiences without requiring a monster gaming PC to run.

According to Ars Technica, the HTC Vive retail partnership is definitely a good thing for the budding VR industry. Most experts in the gaming press have praised the Vive for the motion controllers, the head tracking, and the room-scale VR experiences the headset can deliver. But, says Ars, it’s hard to really understand what it’s like just from reviews and videos. The HTC Vive and the Oculus Rift both deliver immersive experiences unlike anything players have experienced before. According to Ars Technica, the Vive is a “see it to believe it” kind of experience.

Starting April 18, consumers will get the chance to try the HTC Vive without shelling out $799 to buy the VR headset sight-unseen. GameStop will be reportedly rolling out the HTC Vive demo stations later this month, and Microsoft will be following suit, rolling it out to the aforementioned locations first and following up with a few more across the U.S. in the coming months.

The HTC Vive is one of the first consumer-ready VR headsets to reach the hands of the mass-market, delivering startlingly real VR experiences via the Steam VR online store. Reviews peg the HTC Vive as a solid, if pricey, alternative to the less expensive Oculus Rift, which shipped earlier this month.

The Oculus Rift retails for $599 to the HTC Vive’s $799, and while the Vive delivers a room-scale VR experience (with included motion controllers), both headsets have nearly identical technical specifications: high-resolution displays, the same level of detail, the same demanding system requirements. All told, it’s likely a Vive-ready or Rift-ready PC will cost around another $1,000 if players don’t already have access to one, further increasing the already sizeable investment required to enjoy next-gen VR.

For more information about the HTC Vive and the Oculus Rift, check out the Inquisitr’s previous coverage of the next-gen VR headsets.

[Image via HTC]