When you are expecting people to shell out a ton of money, your marketing should include a lot of reassurance. That at least is becoming the case for virtual reality.
Following on from last month’s look at Sony’s latest VR2 headset and the earlier visit with the Meta Quest Pro, here is the HTC Vive XR Elite. It, too, has been launched alongside an online teardown, with a strong focus on wearability and repairability.
First, let’s talk price. A UK consumer will pay £1,299.99 for the XR Elite, including VAT. Excluding VAT, that works out at £1,083.33. By contrast, a US consumer will pay $1,099.99 before tax. At the current exchange rate of about £1=$1.23, that is a sterling equivalent of £894.30 – roughly a £200 mark-up for Brits.
The higher prices UK customers are often charged for consumer electronics is a long-standing bugbear, but this feels like a particularly steep and strange example. If VR is a market that companies like HTC, Meta, Sony and – we...