HTC today launched the Vive Pro McLaren Edition, which includes a limited edition Vive Pro with 2.0 peripherals and colored accents, a themed box, a copy of racing sim rFactor 2 McLaren Edition, and the McLaren Garage VR Experience. Priced at a whopping $1,550 ($150 more than usual), the move makes it less clear than ever whether the Pro is meant for enterprise/commercial use, or for consumers.

When the Vive Pro’s price was announced for the headset alone at $800 earlier this year, VR enthusiasts, including those already bought into HTC’s VR ecosystem, were not happy. The company’s defense at the time was that the headset is really meant for enterprise and commercial customers, and we heard the same sentiment when the price of the Vive Pro ‘Full Kit’ (including 2.0 base stations and controllers) was later announced for $1,400.

HTC’s defense of the price makes some sense. The 2.0 tracking tech’s most notable benefit is that it allows the expansion of the tracking area from some 11.5′ × 11.5′ to 33′ × 33′ with four base stations instead of the usual two. That’s overkill for most every regular consumer, so it’s reasonable to say that the headset (and its price) is intended for enterprise and commercial segments.

But HTC has consistently included consumer-facing use-cases in its marketing message for the Vive Pro, leading consumers to ask ‘why so much?’.

To be fair, they do offer a slightly cheaper Vive Pro ‘Starter Kit’, which includes the headset with 1.0 tracking peripherals, and it’s possible to buy the Vive Pro headset by itself without the 2.0 tracking peripherals (for those who already have a Vive and just want the upgraded headset).

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But today’s launch of the Vive Pro McLaren Edition has taken any semblance of clear market positioning and thrown it right into the garbage.

The McLaren Edition is clearly a consumer-facing headset, as it includes a racing sim out of the box, and the trailer announcing the headset clearly appeals to individual racing fans. And yet, the McLaren Edition not only includes the 2.0 tracking peripherals (which we established are overkill for normal consumers) but they’ve slapped a $150 premium on top of an already premium priced product, bringing the whole thing to a ridiculous $1,550.

Image courtesy HTC

There’s two things that make this especially odd. First is that the headset appears to want to appeal to fans of VR racing simulators. For that, the most thoughtful Vive Pro package would be the headset alone with a single 1.0 base station and no controllers—as no serious racing sims use VR controllers for input—and someone sitting in a chair to play a VR racing game clearly doesn’t benefit from the expanded tracking area supported by 2.0 base stations.

Such a package would be a smart way for HTC to appeal to sim racers who want the headset’s high resolution and strong ergonomics for racing games, without asking them to buy way more than they need. And yet HTC has gone the opposite direction by including the full swath of 2.0 peripherals and then decided to charge even more than the non-McLaren Edition.

Second, HTC chose to launch the more expensive Vive Pro McLaren Edition on Black Friday, perfectly conflicting with the company’s own sale on the Vive Pro Full Kit, which makes an even more egregious $350 price difference between the McLaren Edition ($1,550) and the non-McLaren Edition ($1,200 on sale).

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A sampling a comments from the Vive section of Reddit about the McLaren Edition headset offers telling sentiment from Vive enthusiasts:

quintthemint


If I owned a Mclaren, I would definitely buy this.

But for everyone else who can’t spend 200k on a car, me included, it’s hard to believe the price.

AerialShorts


It looks like all it is is an orange trim piece around the front cameras and a McLaren-themed box.

The orange doesn’t even go well with the Vive Pro blue.

Specs are the same as a regular Pro.

Sorry McLaren and HTC, not even interested in the slightest. How about some Lighthouses 2.0 for my living room? Much rather have those…

LouPoh


Pfff, holy moly… HTC really thinks they can attact people with this “exclusively” shitty offer for more than 30% additional to the normal price??

Good luck with that.

They will sink like a stone as soon as Valve is releasing their own headset… and noone will even shed a tear.

At this point there’s no hiding behind the notion that the Vive Pro is meant for enterprise/commercial usage; this move only further grates on the loyalty of HTC’s early adopter enthusiasts who would love nothing more than to continue to support the company’s continued VR efforts, if only they could afford to.

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Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • Mateusz Pawluczuk

    StarVR with its $3200 seems cheaper and cheaper everyday :D At least in the prosumer section of the market.

  • impurekind

    Seems like a big of confused marketing.

  • prowlhome

    Pointless in anyway… when you are in VR you can’t see the headset.

    It’s a a very HTC thing to do though. Cover something in a colour and charge a fortune for it.

  • prowlhome

    Rift whole kit is €$£319 today – Vive Pro at this lroce has no real Benifit over. I sent mine back.

    Now if it had the wireless kit and didn’t feel like a motorbike helmet….

  • Firestorm185

    HTC, or Hide That Crap! XDD

  • Bryan Ischo

    I rooted for HTC for a long time, but in the end I conclude that they deserve nothing but failure. And I say that with an original Vive and a Vive Pro sitting in my living room.

    I will never buy another piece of HTC hardware — and I suspect that the vast majority of HTC Vive customers feel the same way. We’re all just waiting for something better to come along that is not from HTC.

    I do love the lighthouse tech though, it’s a great ecosystem to have bought into, so there is that.

    Guess I should start saving for a StarVR …

    • Rainfox Wolfstone

      $3200 dollars

  • brubble

    And so it begins, the death knell. ?? Well, maybe not quite yet.

    What a waste of money and guaranteed headache when getting scammed by their CS. Typical.

  • theonlyrealconan

    Makes my recent purchase of the Odyssey Plus for $299 look even more better. I did think about getting the pro, since i have the original vive and sensors. But i could not justify the price difference.

    • Andrew Jakobs

      Yeah, just buy a vive puck and stick it to your Odyssey… ;)

  • tekklertools

    I recently had a broken cable on our vive pro. It was clear that it was the cable. So I returned it to the dealer, it took a whole month for the cable to be replaced by HTC. Since there are no spare parts that are sold separately from HTC or even the trackers, it’s a shame. I hope Valve’s Next-Gen headsets will be produced by any manufacturer other than HTC. The wohle thing is a rip off, the only company that is making the right strategic decissions about VR is facebook/oculus.

  • PJ

    Plus another £200+ for the knuckle controllers when they come out

  • I agree that the Vive Pro has always been haunted by a confusion about it being a commercial or enterprise headset. But playing the devil’s advocate, selling a Vive Pro with v1 base stations would have been weird, really weird. And the v2 base stations have not only the advantage of a bigger play area, but also a greater resistance to interferences, that is crucial in arcades. So the choice could have sense.

    What I criticize most is the design… that orange + blue is not that beautiful…

    • jj

      hey i saw your focus ar rock app :) pretty cool!

  • fuyou2

    They must be on Crack! to do something sooo fucking stupid.. Wake Up Vive!

  • ChrisVR

    I live for the day when this failing phone company goes bankrupt from their stupid marketing decisions. Screw them for taking Valves VR tech hostage with slow roll out and ridiculous pricing. The VR industry would be doing so much if these clowns never got involved

  • Andrew Jakobs

    And to think the regular version is already too expensive, and they targeted it at “pro’s”, but no pro is gonna invest in a special mclaren version..

  • Renzo V

    Samsung Odyssey 299 $ :V

  • NooYawker

    If I owned a Mclaren I would have enough money not to care about how expensive this is. But I do not, so… this is ridiculous.

    • brandon9271

      If I owned a McLaren I’d probably buy a StarVR headset ;)

      • david vincent

        If I owned a McLaren I’d probably buy a VR company ;)

  • Get Schwifty!

    They are a phone company, they just don’t seem to “get the market” for this in the PC world…. seriously, what are they thinking with this…

  • oompah

    Box on ur face

  • Da Mo (JFlash)

    I have some Orange stickers with Mclarance written on them going for $100