HTC says it has no plans to cut Vive price

The HTC Vive will not be cutting its price to mirror the recent discount to Oculus Rift.

Oculus this week announced some steep price cuts to its hardware. The Rift headset itself has been cut from $599 to $499, while the recently released Touch controllers have been halved in price to $99 for the pair. This means that the Rift, two controllers and two camera now costs $598 – that’s a $200 saving.

Most importantly, however, it’s also $200 cheaper that the $799 HTC Vive.

However, HTC has told UploadVR that it will not be drawn into a price war.

We don’t feel the need to cut the price of Vive, as we’ve had incredible success, and continue to see great momentum in market,” it said. We’ve built a strong ecosystem made up of Viveport, Vive X, Vive Tracker and Vive Studios, and remain laser focused and are not changing our strategy of delivering the best and most comprehensive VR product to both developers and consumers.”

Of course, the onus is always on the chasing pack to cut costs and less so on the leader.Analyst estimateshave pegged lifetime worldwide Rift sales at around 243k, with HTC Vive at 420k. Vive has also seena surge of interest from developers, overtaking Rift as the VR platform of choice. Oculus is also in the midst ofa nasty court battle with ZeniMax, which is currently looking to halt sales of the device.

So HTC may be confident that its offer is superior enough to continue attracting buyers even at a premium. However, should there be a radical sales shift, don’t be surprised to see HTC backtrack, or even start rolling out retailer-specific discounts.

Vive has been discounted before – 100 was shaved off the price of the device in the UK over Christmas, both direct from HTC and via official UK suppliers like Currys PC World.