For a long time, Oculus VR had a monopoly on people's hopes and dreams when it came to virtual reality headsets. However in the past 12 months, we've seen a number of other companies come forward with their own plans for VR, one of which was Valve. However, despite the praise heaped on it by developers that were allowed to try the shadowy technology, the Half Life developer made a point of claiming that it didn't want to manufacture the headsets themselves, it just wanted to support VR.
It's cemented that ideal this weekend, by announcing that HTC would be producing its first SteamVR supporting headset. While this is potentially one of many from different developers, the Vive headset is the first and it will pack some impressive features.
The develop version, set to release in the next couple of months, will have a display resolution of 1,200 x 1080 pixels per eye, a refresh rate of 90 Hz and will come with a port for plugging in your own headset, unlike the Oculus Rift Crescent Bay's built in audio system.
It will also feature 360 degree positional tracking thanks to a gyroscope, accelerometer and laser sensors and the ability to walk around within a 15ft room, thanks to the use of SteamVR tracking base stations.
It will even come with hand controllers to let you interact naturally with the real world.
All of this will be shown off at the Game Developer Conference this week, potentially alongside SteamVR headsets from other manufacturers too. The consumer version is set for release by Christmas this year.
