Valve Index VR back on Sale on Monday for $999

[AleksandarK]

Valve's Index VR headset is expected to go back on sale on Monday, March 9th, when Valve will again re-fill its stock of Index VR headsets, according to Engadget. Just in time for the Half-Life: Alyx launch, Valve has decided to supply all of the gamers with a stock of the headsets so everyone can experience the new Half-Life game with Valve's Index VR. Considering that Half-Life: Alyx is dropping on March 23rd, Valve thought of everyone in need of a new VR headset and decided to offer it on Monday. Valve is expecting the headset to sell out completely, so its best to be early if you want to get one too, for $999. The sale will begin at 1PM eastern time.


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[The Quim Reaper]

..When it costs $399, I'll bite. Until then, fxxk off, Valve.

I'm not paying $1k to play a game, any game.

 

[bug]

..When it costs $399, I'll bite. Until then, fxxk off, Valve.

I'm not paying $1k to play a game, any game.

Ender's game, maybe?

 

[xkm1948]

..When it costs $399, I'll bite. Until then, fxxk off, Valve.

I'm not paying $1k to play a game, any game.

Nobody is asking you to go for the flag ship HMD. There are plenty good Windows MR or Oculus Rift S out there for $200 to $400

 

[danbert2000]

..When it costs $399, I'll bite. Until then, fxxk off, Valve.

I'm not paying $1k to play a game, any game.

There are plenty of good headsets in that range, like the Rift S. Index speaks to Valve's desire to keep pushing the envelope of VR rather than focus on commodotization just yet. I do hope they'll find a way to release a good headset for less, but that would probably require inside-out tracking and lesser screens or optics.

 

[TheDeeGee]

Pretty expensive for a Half-Life game.

 

[moproblems99]

Nobody is asking you to go for the flag ship HMD. There are plenty good Windows MR or Oculus Rift S out there for $200 to $400

Nobody wants motion sickness either. From my limited reading, the index is the best way to go to reduce that.

 

[Deleted member 67555]

And here I was thinking they were going to launch with a $500ish top line VR set....LOL
I see this being less popular than the steam Link or the Steam controller.
Prices this high is only going to keep this a niche market which means there won't be a lot of money for bigger better games which means fewer people are going to give a shit just like what has been happening for years now..

 

[Berfs1]

nice sale

Nobody is asking you to go for the flag ship HMD. There are plenty good Windows MR or Oculus Rift S out there for $200 to $400

man why does everything have to be unreasonably expensive..?

 

[NC37]

Nobody is asking you to go for the flag ship HMD. There are plenty good Windows MR or Oculus Rift S out there for $200 to $400

When you really get into it and examine the cheaper sets, if it's not at least $500+, it's pretty much throwing money away. There is too much of a gap in quality and functionality for the prices. High end is definitely price gouging to some degree but there aren't competitors to help bring prices down. Won't be until VR gets it's killer app that everyone must have and it very likely won't be Alyx.

 

[Mindweaver]

When you really get into it and examine the cheaper sets, if it's not at least $500+, it's pretty much throwing money away. There is too much of a gap in quality and functionality for the prices. High end is definitely price gouging to some degree but there aren't competitors to help bring prices down. Won't be until VR gets it's killer app that everyone must have and it very likely won't be Alyx.

Not true, the Rift S is a really great VR HMD for $399. I have a Vive and a Rift S and the Rift S is much better optic wise over the Vive and the Tracking is really good for inside out tracking. I have no complaints. I'd even go so far as to say that a 200 dollar Windows Mixed reality is a great way to jump in cheap. 9 times out of 10 if you can't afford an Index then you really can't afford the hardware to run it properly with it's 90, 120 and 144 refresh rate. Also, I'll add that I can't afford the hardware or the Index HMD atm.. lol But I can't stress enough how good the Rift S is and looks in-game. I joined in on both of the Half-Life Alyx home environments and they look amazing and they aren't even using Source 2 for the home yet.

 

[xkm1948]

Not true, the Rift S is a really great VR HMD for $399. I have a Vive and a Rift S and the Rift S is much better optic wise over the Vive and the Tracking is really good for inside out tracking. I have no complaints. I'd even go so far as to say that a 200 dollar Windows Mixed reality is a great way to jump in cheap. 9 times out of 10 if you can't afford an Index then you really can't afford the hardware to run it properly with it's 90, 120 and 144 refresh rate. Also, I'll add that I can't afford the hardware or the Index HMD atm.. lol But I can't stress enough how good the Rift S is and looks in-game. I joined in on both of the Half-Life Alyx home environments and they look amazing and they aren't even using Source 2 for the home yet.

Dude a portion of population will always be hesitant to embrace new things, it is human nature.

 

[Mindweaver]

Dude a portion of population will always be hesitant to embrace new things, it is human nature.

Have you seen the new HLA environments? They are sweet! Just go to Home and browse environments down at the bottom right it says Socal. Click it and you'll see a list of public shared homes and just find both. They are at the top of the list. I joined one the first day and it had 30 people in it and it was slow.. but find one with 3 or 4 hell anything below 10 people and it good. lol Also, I just bought the game.. lol I was holding out for index controllers but after seeing it in my Rift S it's going to be sweet and the touch controllers have grown on me.

 

[Raunhofer]

Imagine someone from the 90's hearing that just a few decades forward there are people complaining how the flagship virtual reality system is $999 and it's too much.
And right after that learning that a lot of people consider $999 phones reasonable, although $999 may not be enough for a flagship model.

I wonder how many would believe that story.

----

Ender's game, maybe?

I've been playing that game for a long time already. It's called Echo VR.

 

[Octavean]

Nobody is asking you to go for the flag ship HMD. There are plenty good Windows MR or Oculus Rift S out there for $200 to $400

Totally agree. Perfectly sound logic IMO.

However, in the case of the Valve Index HMD and Half Life: Alyx when people make such assertions about VR hardware, prices and the game one should also consider that it might not be coming from a sincere place to begin with. A lot of people were waiting for a new Half Life game for a long time and a lot of people aren't going to be happy about it being a VR only game. Therefore, some people are going to act out in various ways to show their disapproval. Sometime it might look a little like sour grapes (Things that somebody pretends to despise because he/she cannot obtain or have ).

Then there are always going to be people who scoff at higher end of the spectrum products like the RTX 2080 Ti, Core i9 10980XE or RyZen 3950X because they expect to obtain them for a penny on the dollar. This is just unrealistic as most of know that performance costs and you've got to pay to play.

The reality is that Valve put a lot of work into Half Life: Alyx to assure it will run well on a verity of modern VR HMD's including the original Oculus Rift which is already end-of-life.

There are number of videos and interviews explaining the design process and care that went into development of HLA. For what its worth, I would be very surprised if the average player experienced any motion sickness / VR sickness. There are comfort settings abound in HLA.