Virtual Reality (VR) is a trend that seems to be here to stay and HTC was smart enough to guarantee its piece of the cake early on. As the company battles with its position in the smartphone business, the HTC Vive, a VR headset unveiled a year ago and developed in partnership with Valve Corporation (makers of the Steam gaming platform) is already giving some light at the end of the tunnel for the company. Despite being announced last March, it was not until February 29th of this year that the device was up for pre-order, selling more than 15,000 units in just 10 minutes and now that pre-orders are readying to be shipped to users, it is time to pay for those pre-orders, as HTC didn’t charge anyone’s credit card when they did make their original order. However, now that these orders are about to be filled, it seems as though the company has been facing problems with charging some people.
A report from Android Central reveals that some users are having their $800-charge declined by fraud protection systems from their respective financial institutions. If you pre-ordered the HTC Vive, make sure to check if the charge has been made, otherwise, you may need to contact HTC to solve the problem and finish the transaction so they can ship out your Vive. The number to call is 888.216.4736 and users have reported that there’s a significant waiting time.
The HTC Vive is a very interesting device and it will come in direct competition with the Oculus Rift, another VR headset. The initial focus of both gadgets is gaming, and the Vive will feature more than a hundred games when it is officially released on April 5th. Composed by a head-mounted display and a pair of controllers, the Vive uses a set of laser beacons installed in a room to provide the virtual world to immerse you. In order for it to work, you need to have a compatible computer and the Vive has to stay connected to it using a long cord, and games can be bought on Steam’s dedicated store. As previously mentioned, the HTC Vive was open for pre-orders at $799 and should hit the market by next week, on April 5th, for the same price.