There's no exact release date for the HTC Vive VR headset yet but when it does come out, it will go on sale via HTC's website. The information comes straight from the Taiwanese company's head of global marketing Jeff Gattis.
Gattis was speaking with Polygon about HTC and Valve's partnership that brought on the Vive VR headset. The smartphone maker took care of the hardware side of the equation while the "Half Life" developer worked on software.
As a result of the partnership, the first retail versions of the Vive will reportedly be sold through HTC.com and HTCVR.com. But it won't be exclusively available from HTC. Gattis revealed they have been meeting with "excited" retailers as well.
"Everybody is excited about this: They see the potential for the market, the potential to sell the things around it. They see it as a great traffic driver to their stores."
Gattis added that "retail will be part of [their] strategy" but it won't come to fruition until Q1 2016. The HTC exec also reiterated that the company is committed to the targeted end of 2015 launch of the HTC Vive VR headset.
"I don't know if we're necessarily going to hit retail for holiday, but we're still very committed to that."
Virtual reality is just beginning to go mainstream but the market is already populated with plenty of choices for consumers. How would Vive stand out from its rivals? Gattis said Valve's Lighthouse position tracking tech gives it the edge.
"We think it's the best tracking system out there, and that combined with 90 frames [per second] and all of the sensors we have that are interacting with those lasers, that's really what's enabling the precision tracking."
But according to the HTC exec, "the ability to walk around the environment" is the Vive's real ace. Known as "Room Scale," Gattis said the technology "adds an element of presence that makes it feel so much more real."
"Even if you're not moving around, just knowing you can, it really takes you out of the real world and into this virtual space."
Before its targeted holiday 2015 launch date, the final version of the HTC Vive VR headset will supposedly be revealed in mid-October. For the meantime, it is currently on a limited worldwide tour.
