HTC Vive Shifts 15,000 Units In Its First 10 Minutes On Sale

   

   The HTC Vive VR headset went on sale yesterday, as I’m sure you’re all aware. The head-mounted display will set you back $800 in the States, £750 including shipping and tax in the UK, and €972 in Europe. Which, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, isn’t all that cheap for the vast majority of people. Clearly there’s at least a modicum of a demand even at this price though, with HTC VR specialist Shen Ye claiming more than 15,000 HTC Vive headsets were shifted in the first 10 minutes.

 That’s equivalent to roughly $12 million in sales within just 600 seconds. Not too shabby considering the concerns about its pricing. “Woah, more than 15k units in less than 10min :o”, tweeted Shen Ye, as launch day stocks ran dry. We'd love to stack that against Oculus Rift pre-orders, but Oculus has been very cagey about the number of units sold. Those who choose to splash out the cash will snag the headset itself, along with two positional sensors and the motion-based controllers which the Rift is sorely missing at launch. Along with this, pre-order customers will net copies of Tilt Brush, Amazing Contraptions and Job Simulator for a limited time. With all these additions, the HTC Vive quickly becomes the better value proposition in comparison to the Rift, so this could prove to be an intriguing battle.

Have you pre-ordered an HTC Vive? Do these figures suggest there is genuine interest in VR, or is this just a demonstration of  an enthusiast audience?