Earlier this year, Valve and HTC insisted that at least a few eager virtual-reality fans would be able to get their hands on the fruits of their partnership, the HTC Vive, by the end of 2015. However, hard news about the system, which combines a headset, two tracking stations, and two handheld wand controllers, proved hard to come by as 2015 drew to a close, and on Tuesday, we learned exactly why.

A post at HTC's official blog (Google cache here) revealed that the company was delaying Vive's retail launch until April 2016. No other hard details about the launch, including an exact release date, pricing information, or number of units shipping across the world, were included in the announcement.

Instead, the news post buried that delay announcement by talking about Vive-related initiatives in the near future, including a Vive-specific conference in Beijing on December 18, a presence at this January's Consumer Electronics Show, and plans to make 7,000 Vive dev kits "available" to creators at the "start" of 2016. HTC will also host VR demos at upcoming expos such as the Game Developers Conference, South by Southwest Interactive, and the Sundance Film Festival.

This news follows HTC's August downplay of the 2015 launch from "full" to "limited." With this delay, Oculus may actually wind up beating HTC to market, should the Rift meet its announced "Q1 2016" launch window., while PlayStation VR may not be far behind with its announced "first half of 2016" release. Valve representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment.