Valve has finally revealed its VR intentions – but what do developers think of the Vive, the latest entry into an increasingly crowded market?

Just when you thought you had the consumer virtual reality market mapped out, along comes Valve, the veteran developer behind the dominant Steam gaming platform, to complicate things yet further.

At the Mobile World Congress on Sunday, smartphone manufacturer HTC announced the Vive, a powerful new VR headset, built in association with Valve, and featuring two 1200 x 1080 displays, a smooth 90-frames-per-second refresh rate and a bunch of motion tracking technologies: this includes two “base stations” that will work like Microsoft’s Kinect, allowing the headset to track the player’s movement within the room. Vive is also set to ship with two wireless controllers – although little was said about what these would look like.

The big news is, it’s due out later this year, potentially beating both the Oculus Rift and Sony Project Morpheus to market.

But what do virtual reality developers make of the hardware? We asked five developers currently working on VR projects for their reactions.

Nick Pittom, developer, Fire Panda

The specs sound pretty solid: 90hz is on par with Oculus currently, and the screen resolution seems good. The tracking volume of 15ft sounds excellent and it’s certainly an important area. Certainly it seems for the first time Oculus has some real competition, releasing this year (no confirmed Oculus release, but this year might also happen), of comparable hardware. However, Valve is a behemoth in PC gaming and will have name recognition to put themselves on a level with Oculus. Really, it’s exciting because competition can only help developers and consumers.

However it’s the proposed input being included with the headset – two hand tracking controllers – that seems the biggest deal. Oculus has been notoriously shy about speaking on input, besides suggesting they’re working on it. A bundled headset and controller developer kit coming within weeks will be a very big deal for developers, and Oculus will have to reveal more about their own plans soon or, with headsets perhaps being equal, risk losing their current mind-share place as ‘top’ VR hardware developer.

This is a very big deal for VR as it now puts two HMDs on the market aimed at the highest possible consumer VR experience. Valve is one of the biggest names in PC gaming and certainly the biggest online games store. Sony may make some waves with Morpheus, but PC will likely be the leading VR platform. For the PC to get two big players at this stage vying for their attention it can only mean some very exciting things in the future, and of course, devs get a bigger market to sell to. HTC being the partner is an interesting choice, and I guess it will be interesting to see if they have their own Gear VR-like plans for the future, something I imagine is inevitable. Mobile VR is likely the future (no one likes wires) so HTC are positioning themselves to be a big player.

Daniël Ernst, designer, The Shoebox Diorama

The specs sound great, but let’s focus on the best thing: being able to walk around.



I had the pleasure of visiting the Valve Room last year and it was wonderful. It was basically a broom closet filled with QR stickers. The HMD looked like it was kitbashed together, like a prop from Blade Runner. It worked, though. You could walk around. This opened up a plethora of new design possibilities.

Playing a VR game with a controller or keyboard is not an easy experience to get used too. The first couple of minutes of Half Life 2 in VR is among the best experiences I have ever had in a game. The ten minutes after that were the most horrible. Moving around in virtual space with a controller or keyboard is unnatural, breaks the immersion and makes you sick.

Being able to actually walk around and interface with objects in 3D space directly solves these very important problems, while of course introducing some new ones.

Katie Goode, developer, Triangular Pixels

My initial thoughts were: “Wow, I need one in my life.” It’s a great looking device with some solid names behind it. The most exciting element is the tracking of a 15 feet squared space. The press release said the device will let you get up, walk around and explore your virtual space, inspect objects from every angle and “truly interact with your surroundings”.

This will allow for some really interesting game play – if it is safe to do so. Being able to freely move around but still have a cord attaching you to an expensive PC rig does worry me slightly. It seems like it would be up to developers to be responsible with how they use the technology, in order to keep players safe. Does the hardware automatically detect obstacles in the room? Does it know if the cable is being pulled too tight? Are the cables designed to come away easily to prevent damage to hardware?

I’m interested to see the wireless controllers, too, as not much was said other than the fact they were HTC-built and used hand tracking. The issue here would be if those controllers come with the kit when it comes to retail, as that’ll directly affect the numbers of games that support them.

The announcement probably affects the gaming industry more than others. The partnership with Valve is already spreading rumours about VR versions of the company’s own titles. It also suggests that the hugely dominant platform, Steam, will be one of the go-to places for VR content in the future. These are very exciting times.

Hrafn Thorri Thorisson, CEO, Aldin Dynamics

I’m not intending to sound dramatic, but Vive could change everything. Valve is just about the only company in the world that’s close to where Oculus is in terms of expertise and skillset required to deploy quality VR hardware. Moreover, Valve is the creator of some of history’s most popular video games — they really know how to make engaging content and the world knows it.

It’s also exciting to see Valve partnering up with quality VR developers like Cloudhead Games, which is among the most experienced VR content creators out there. The fact that they’ve jumped on board says a lot about the promise and quality of Vive.



The fact that HTC included a release window for the consumer version, on top of everything else, is going to help kick things into high gear. Valve has the largest PC gaming distribution platform and that is a major advantage over all other players in the PC VR space. They have the audience, they have the experience and they have content creators. We’ll have to see wait and see what else they’ll reveal — but at this point in time it is safe to say that Valve’s participation will dramatically alter the VR scene.

Dan Page, Opposable Games

A partnership between HTC and Valve is serious stuff; they’re both great at what they do and, in my opinion, create some of the most seamless user interfaces on the market. Oculus is the first to admit that the user experience on the Rift is shoddy to say the least – to bring VR to the consumer we need access to be as fiddle-free as

possible.



So far I’m hearing some amazing reports concerning the accuracy of the tracking, and, my word, a 15 x 15 feet tracking area is really quite something; if this actually works they’re onto some serious holodeck stuff here. Some of the most immersive experiences I’ve had are when an Oculus Rift has been set up with enough distance to effectively have a bit of a wander. The Vive might make this a more regular occurrence.