Valve are making the Index VR kit available in more countries

Fantastic News, I hope they have more plans to asess market interest and offer sales and shipping to more countries aswell, or at the very least target different regions over the world.

I have heard stories about Canadians driving 6+ hours and crossing the border to get their Valve Index due to the limited sales locations.


Last edited by ElectricPrism on 22 November 2019 at 11:14 am UTC

Nice deal, but I'll wait till Index and Alyx both work perfectly on SteamOS.

$999.00 is a really hard price to justify, even if I could afford it.

VR was a niche market, is a niche market and will be a niche market due to the high price and the lack of local production....

I might consider if it was at half the price. That would put more VRs in people's homes.

Budgetwise I have to select between the Index and the PC to render it. Although I think that with my thinkpad t430 and my RX580 eGPU I can come a long way, as I've noticed the PCI bandwidth is overrated.

Fantastic News, I hope they have more plans to asess market interest and offer sales and shipping to more countries aswell, or at the very least target different regions over the world.

I have heard stories about Canadians driving 6+ hours and crossing the border to get their Valve Index due to the limited sales locations.

If you start from scratch... 1 320 CAN$... It's even more than my whole brand new computer. Not ready for mainstream adoption at all. :O

Sad, because de new HL game preview is making me drool! :)


Last edited by Mohandevir on 22 November 2019 at 2:55 pm UTC

Can confirm, the Index page in the Steam app does give a price and an "Add to cart" button for Canadian users.

Oddly, they still don't offer the Steam Controller here.

$999.00 is a really hard price to justify, even if I could afford it.

It's not essential. It's a niche gadget. The price will more than halve if vr goes mainstream.

Europe is NOT covered. It's not available in Norway.

Europe is NOT covered. It's not available in Norway.

Strange, it's available here in Sweden, 1079€ though (which of course is basically free for you rich Norwegians).

Strange, it's available here in Sweden, 1079€ though (which of course is basically free for you rich Norwegians).

Did I tell the story when my girlfriend and me were to Norway (Narvik) for some hours, ate at a snack bar, paid over 30€, not even including something to drink, she couldn't eat her's to end because it was plain disgusting, I got the runs from mine, and when I was at the main station's toilet to do what I had to, somebody had written to the wall "Norway is too fuckin' expensive!"...?
Well... I could relate to this! :D


Last edited by Eike on 22 November 2019 at 5:35 pm UTC

$999.00 is a really hard price to justify, even if I could afford it.

Try to say that on Steam forums, their replies goes from "you dont have a job" to "maybe it is time to move to another country".

These VR owners are just a bunch of 4ssh0l3es(not all of them, some has been very open minded and they know VR isnt for everyone, so Alyx should have a non VR version), they even speak that you arent a "PC gamer" if you dont upgrade your PC every two years. Also they automatically think that if someone doesnt like VR is because they cant afford it.

This has been a cancer since PC gaming exist in the 90s, a handful of people who had plenty of money to spend on the most expensive hardware is always attacking PC gamers that play on laptops and low-mid end hardware, when a game is poorly optimized they blame people for not "upgrading", the worst thing is they are a vocal minority, because Steam surveys show most people play on Laptops and low end PCs, worst of all, VR owners are even less than Linux gamers, but they are behaving right now like if they were an entitled mayority.

VR is expensive, Valve had 4 years to make it affordable but instead of that they prefer to launch an "exclusive" game, Index is their first solo VR product, but one could think that they experience with VIVE would serve Valve to learn that the first step was making VR accessible for most, but they preferred the EGS/Console way.


Last edited by orochi_kyo on 22 November 2019 at 7:01 pm UTC

Europe is NOT covered. It's not available in Norway.

Strange, it's available here in Sweden, 1079€ though (which of course is basically free for you rich Norwegians).

Maybe because Norway is not a member of UE?

Even if - it is quite strange, because Norway is a member of European Economic Area and European Free Trade Association, so in practice they are "almost" in UE;)

Europe is NOT covered. It's not available in Norway.

Strange, it's available here in Sweden, 1079€ though (which of course is basically free for you rich Norwegians).

I know, and since it's only sold through Steam I can't just drive across the border and pick it up in a shop either. I'll have to get a Swedish colleague to buy it for me on his steam account and get it transported to me somehow.

It's really odd, this. It's the same with all Valve hardware: No Norwegian distributor deal.


Last edited by Beamboom on 22 November 2019 at 8:18 pm UTC

$999.00 is a really hard price to justify, even if I could afford it.

Try to say that on Steam forums, their replies goes from "you dont have a job" to "maybe it is time to move to another country".

These VR owners are just a bunch of 4ssh0l3es(not all of them, some has been very open minded and they know VR isnt for everyone, so Alyx should have a non VR version), they even speak that you arent a "PC gamer" if you dont upgrade your PC every two years. Also they automatically think that if someone doesnt like VR is because they cant afford it.

This has been a cancer since PC gaming exist in the 90s, a handful of people who had plenty of money to spend on the most expensive hardware is always attacking PC gamers that play on laptops and low-mid end hardware, when a game is poorly optimized they blame people for not "upgrading", the worst thing is they are a vocal minority, because Steam surveys show most people play on Laptops and low end PCs, worst of all, VR owners are even less than Linux gamers, but they are behaving right now like if they were an entitled mayority.

VR is expensive, Valve had 4 years to make it affordable but instead of that they prefer to launch an "exclusive" game, Index is their first solo VR product, but one could think that they experience with VIVE would serve Valve to learn that the first step was making VR accessible for most, but they preferred the EGS/Console way.

I don't think that non VR Alyx is real option for them. They need something which stadia can't compete. VR is that think, because lag, but how force people to prefer VR before streaming on cheap HW? Only with exclusivity, there is problem with price, but i don't thin this is real problem, you don't need own it. I hope for a new life for "LAN gaming centers".
Second reason is, VR is too different, using only one screen is easy, but if you design game only for VR, you don't need think about "And how they can do it with keyboard?", which means game can be better, without compromises. Think about how you can control both hands separately with keyboard and mouse,...

I might consider if it was at half the price. That would put more VRs in people's homes.

Oculus Rift S, while technically not as advanced as Index, is $399, which is less than half the price of Index. It works really well and is much easier to set up than Index. People expect it to be available for $349 on Black Friday.

Unfortunately no Linux support, not even a half-baked one like Index.

ate at a snack bar

Never eat at a snack bar. Don't matter what country you're in, you'll hate it after the snack bar.

I might consider if it was at half the price. That would put more VRs in people's homes.

Oculus Rift S, while technically not as advanced as Index, is $399, which is less than half the price of Index. It works really well and is much easier to set up than Index. People expect it to be available for $349 on Black Friday.

Unfortunately no Linux support, not even a half-baked one like Index.

Then it isn't a real option ;)

ate at a snack bar

Never eat at a snack bar. Don't matter what country you're in, you'll hate it after the snack bar.

:-D
I do it from times to times here in Germany and don't regret it. I wonder if it gets less pleasant with me getting older lately, though. Maybe the overload of fat is better suited for a young stomach.