More SteamVR headsets are on the way, Valve says

Following the release of Valve’s first VR headset in 2016, the company has said that more virtual reality headsets using its Lighthouse tracking tech are in the works.

In reply to a question on a Reddit AMA, Valve’s Joe Ludwig outlined progress being made in licensing the firm’s SteamVR Tracking system.

According to Ludwig, 500 companies are registered to use Lighthouse – the devices that track head movement on the HTC Vive – and that ‘some of them’ are making HMDs: head-mounted displays.

500 companies have signed up to use Lighthouse and some of them are making HMDs. A few of them have talked about that, but a bunch more will announce when they’re ready,” Ludwig said.

As far as we know, everything is in place for any store to support the Vive. As part of your initial setup you would still install Steam to get the drivers, but Steam doesn’t need to be running for the Vive to work.

The controller production line is still going strong and churning out controllers. The next line we’re building is for the base stations we talked about at Dev Days. They’ll start showing up later this year.

Using automation allows us to keep production local, which means our employees can be much more hands-on with the manufacturing process. That works a lot better with how Valve works, so we’ll probably keep doing that going forward.”

Valve unveiled its Steam VR platform, alongside the Vive VR headset, in March 2015.

The hardware launched in March 2016 with a 689 price tag. The cost has since increased to 816, thanks to currency fluctuations.