HTC's Virtual reality hardware hit the market this past spring, but it has yet to benefit from widespread availability. HTC didn’t have any retail partners in place for the Vive launch, so if you wanted to be at the forefront of the consumer virtual reality revolution you had to pre-order directly from HTC.
Direct sales from the company website are fine for a certain segment of the population, but not everyone is willing to purchase goods this way. For the Vive (and VR in general) to gain widespread adoption, the hardware must be available from retailers that people know and trust. To that end, HTC started selling the Vive in brick and mortar stores, such as GameStop, Micro Center, and Microsoft stores, in recent months.
HTC also partnered with several online resellers. Microsoft, GameStop, Micro Center and Newegg all sell Vive hardware through their websites. Now you can add Amazon to the list of websites where you can purchase “the future.”
Amazon is selling the Vive on behalf of HTC, and it will take care of shipping and handling from its warehouses. The HTC Vive sells for $799 plus shipping.
