BARCELONA — If you think the Oculus Rift's $599 price tag is a lot of money for a virtual reality headset, you're not going to like how much the HTC Vive is going to cost.

HTC announced at Mobile World Congress the Vive will cost $799 in the U.S., a $200 premium over the Oculus Rift. It'll cost £689 in the UK.

See also: HTC Vive Pre is a killer VR experience

Pre-orders for the VR headset will still open on Feb. 29, with devices shipping out in early April.

Before you freak out over how expensive the Vive is (and how much VR will cost for first adopters), it's helpful to understand why.

While the Vive and Rift headsets are going to offer very similar visual experiences, the Vive ships with something the Rift doesn't: proper VR controllers. The Rift comes with a wireless Xbox One controller and not the Oculus Touch hand controllers, which won't be available until later this year.

The controllers make all the difference. Without them, controlling things in VR isn't nearly as intuitive and natural. It's like drawing with a stylus versus using a computer mouse. VR is simply more immersive with hand controllers.

What's inside the box

Here's everything you get when you throw down $800 for the Vive:

Vive headset

Vive controllers (one for each hand)

Vive base stations (2)

Vive link box

Vive ear buds

2 included games

You'll get the VR headset, of course. The final version will look very similar to the Pre model we saw at CES

The two base station boxes that track your body movement and create a virtual room with a 16-foot diagonal will be wireless (they need to be plugged into a power source, but not your computer) and quieter, HTC says. Though there will be an optimal setup (usually positioned above you and in a corner), you'll be able to position them from various angles, like on a bookshelf or on a coffee table. Heck, you can tape them to a wall, if you want, we're told.

The link box is a small black box used to connect the Vive headset to a computer.

As important as the visual experience is for a VR headset, audio is equally important. As such, the Vive include a pair of earbuds.

The Vive will come bundled with two games: Job Simulator: The 2050 Archives and Fantastic Contraption. Additional games and content will be available through Valve's Steam.

Here's Job Simulator: The 2050 Archives...

...and here's Fantastic Contraption in action:

Like the Oculus Rift, you'll need to have a powerful enough PC to run the Vive. HTC didn't provide specific minimum specs that users will need, nor did it say if the Vive will be sold with PC bundles like the Rift.

We were only told you should have a PC with an NVIDIA GeForce G70 or AMD Radeon RD 290x or newer graphics card. Needless to say, your puny Ultrabook won't cut it.

With pricing set for both the Rift and Vive, the ball is now in Sony's court. How much will the PlayStation VR cost? Pricing it cheaper than its primary competitors could help it win over consumers.