Valve's free VR helmet for game developers

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    Valve has kept its promise to provide game developers with access to their new virtual reality helmet, reports arstechnica . The steamcommunity resource is already available for filling out a form for developers to receive a free copy of the helmet from HTC and the development kit. Included with the helmet will be two sensors installed in the room to track the user's position in space and his actions. Distribution of helmets to developers is planned in late spring, but the list of regions available to receive the kit will be limited. The retail price of the device for consumers, according to Valve, will be 350 US dollars.

    The Vive helmet was created in conjunction with HTC and contains a lot more hardware than its competitors from Sony, Samsung and Oculus. In addition to the virtual reality helmet itself, two base stations for scanning an area of ​​5 by 5 meters with lasers come with the device. Also, together with the Vive helmet, the user will receive two motion controllers, which will allow to track his actions as accurately as possible during the game. The Valve helmet can be called the best development in this area today, however, it also has a drawback - bulky wires coming from the helmet to the computer.

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    Photo by Sebastian Anthony / arstechnica

    Get the developer kit "for free", as many have tried to do this with Steam Machine, will not work. The Valve form requires not only personal information of the user, such as name, surname and address, but also the name of the developer company, team size, a brief description of the project that will adapt to Vive and an approximate release date. All these actions are aimed at dropping out random users and providing Vive exclusively to game developers.

    The consumer version of the helmet will go on sale later, but according to Valve's promises, this will happen at the end of 2015. The Valve and HTC tandem have every chance to set the bar high and occupy the “high end” niche in the field of virtual reality helmets.

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