I have to admit, I am a little surprised. The Valve Index limited pre-orders that went live on May 1st have already completely sold out.
Looking at the store page in the UK for the full kit, it's now only showing that you can reserve it with a new expected shipping date of August 31st. However, the Controllers and Base Stations are still showing up as in stock. Oddly the full bundle has a different expected shipping date to the Headset/Controller bundle and Headset by itself with those now expected by July 31st.
It seems for those who are really interested in VR, price is no issue. However, we've no idea how many Valve were keeping in reserve for the initial batch. In the press release Valve originally sent, all they said was that it was "limited". I can imagine them having quite a lot though of course, so it's still a very healthy sign for Valve's newer platform.
Going by the Steam Hardware Survey, the amount of people with a VR set on Steam is currently below 1% of Steam users so perhaps we will see a nice up-tick by the end of the year? For those who keep writing-off VR as a ridiculous niche, do keep in mind the VR market share on Steam is now higher than Linux.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
I would love to know how many units we're talking about. Knowing Valve, they'll say "100%" and expect us to be satisfied with that 'number'.
Arehandoro May 3, 2019
If we do not have an idea, how much was in stock, it does not say anything...
That is like, "I think my PC will cost 1000"
nattydread May 3, 2019
I hope so!
Quoting: einherjarTBH, that is some kind of "none-information".Regardless of the details there: An expensive new bit of hardware that supports Linux from day one selling out, is actually very good to know. It shows Valve are obviously onto something, people have been waiting for a seriously good VR HMD even if it's pricey.
If we do not have an idea, how much was in stock, it does not say anything...
That is like, "I think my PC will cost 1000"
I'm a bit worried about that they went with LCD over OLED, but maybe that makes sense - we will see. Also not sure about the "off ear" headphones. I'm a bit worried that the audio will be mushy if you are in a room with friends with loud speakers.
Anyways, I'm excited! Now if I could get hold of a unit...
Full unboxing & testing live stream will be done once it arrives.
EDIT: Vive launch was a bit rocky for me on Linux, but now that it has matured, let's see how this launch will go.
Last edited by beniwtv on 3 May 2019 at 10:07 am UTC
Sil_el_mot May 3, 2019
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