The HTC Vive Cosmos is expected to arrive in the next couple of months, with the company still sticking to its Q3 2019 launch window. The last few have seen new videos and specifications being released but there hasn’t been much info relating to price – other than a rumoured $900 USD which was supposedly ‘incorrect’. Today, UK retailer Argos has put up a listing pricing the device at £699.99 GBP.
As the image above displays, the HTC Vive Cosmos can be searched for and found alongside the original HTC Vive. Clicking on the link however doesn’t take you to the product listing, just a page saying ‘Watch This Space…Check Back Soon’. So it’s more than likely a placeholder price. While HTC Vive has yet to confirm the retail price for Cosmos, the £699.99 may very well be near the mark.
The original HTC Vive costs £499 on the official site (£499.99 at Argos for some reason), and the most recent addition to the SteamVR hardware lineup Valve Index will set you back £919 for the entire kit. So a price in between both does seem reasonable. Whether this translates across the world is another matter. While UK prices include VAT (Value Added Tax) US prices tend to add on top. So an Oculus Quest is £399 in the UK and $399 in the US, regardless of variables such as currency fluctuations – on the other hand, the full Valve Index kit does retail for $999.
If this does turn out to be the correct price then HTC Vive Cosmos does look to be going in the same direction as its SteamVR cousin, going for high-end quality rather than mass consumer affordability like Oculus Rift S. It’s also unclear whether the original HTC Vive will be discontinued as it’s now over three years old, yet offers the cheapest entry point into the system.
At the end of June, HTC Vive revealed the headset would feature a combined resolution of 2880×1770 (1440×1700 per-eye) using an LCD display, an 88% increase in resolution over the original HTC Vive. Other specs include a hinged design, six inside-out tracking cameras, and a 90Hz refresh rate.
More official details should be coming soon, when they do VRFocus will let you know.
via Mint VR