Developers eager to get their hands on the Valve-supported HTC Vive can now sign up to be considered for a free developer kit.

As we were the first to report last month , Vive developer kits will be available free of charge to approved developers, ahead of the availability of commercial units "at a later date this year" (those customers should "expect a higher price point" according to HTC ). This is in stark contrast to the likes of Oculus, which has sold tens of thousands of $300 to $350 Rift developer kits since mid-2013 to anyone who wants them.

Those hoping to set up shop as a one-person "developer" to scam their way into some free early access may want to think again. Valve's application form asks for a company name, URL, team size, and a detailed description of the VR project you hope to make with the Vive dev kit. All that information will factor into Valve's selection process, and while Valve hasn't detailed exactly what it's looking for out of submissions, spokesperson Doug Lombardi told Ars that "all interested developers, big and small" should feel welcome to apply.

For those that pass Valve's muster, dev kits will being shipping in the spring and continue to go out throughout the summer, the company said. "Our goal is to support as many VR content creators as possible and, to that end, we will be distributing dev kits continually, with new units going out every couple weeks. However, supplies may be limited," Valve warns in a post announcing the development kit program.

Approved developers will get a headset with two 1080×1200 displays that refresh at 90 frames per second, two handheld controllers, and base stations that help track both the headset and the controllers "to an accuracy of 1/10th of a degree." That sounds quite similar to the test unit that impressed us so much when we got to try it out early March . It's enough to make us quite jealous of the developers that are going to get their hands on dev kits well before everyone else. We'd be happy to provide, um, testing assistance if any of those developers are interested in letting us try out their dev kits. Get in touch!