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Valve's VR Headset Is Still Coming This Year, but in 'Limited Quantities'

The HTC Vive is technically still coming out this year but you might not be able to get one.
Image: HTC/Valve

Vive, the virtual reality headset made by smartphone manufacturer HTC and gaming company Valve, is one of the main reasons people are so hyped on virtual reality right now, and even more so because the companies originally announced that we'll be able to buy it before the year is out.

Today, Valve said in a press release that while the Vive headset is still technically coming out in 2015, it will only be available "via a limited quantity of community and developer systems," with larger quantities shipping in the first quarter of 2016.

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Valve has been shipping Vive developer kits since June, but you have to be a developer who signed up to be part of the program to get one of those, and Valve said that it already received 10,000 inquiries about development kits, with 80 games currently in development.

Valve also didn't specify how you'll be able to get a Vive through its "community systems," but it doesn't sound like the average customer will be able to order it online this year.

Note that Valve fist announced that the Vive would be released in 2015 before Oculus had a release date. Back then, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey said that "something would have to go terrible wrong" for the company's headset not to launch in 2015.

It seems that now that Oculus pushed the launch into the first quarter of 2016, Valve did too.

We're still skeptical about the prospects of VR games, but Vive is the most impressive headset we've yet tried.