How the Vive Was Born
In 2014, Valve was looking for a partner to mass-produce its VR system with Lighthouse tracking (laser base stations). Cher Wang personally struck a deal with Gabe Newell; HTC offered its engineering and manufacturing capacity. The prototype was shown to a small circle at Steam Dev Days (January 2014), the announcement came on March 1, 2015 at MWC in Barcelona, the same day as the One M9. Developer kits (the Vive Pre) were sent out in 2015, and sales began on April 5, 2016.
What Was Revolutionary
- Room-scale: the player walks freely over an area of up to 4.5×4.5 m; the Chaperone system draws virtual walls.
- Lighthouse: sub-millimeter tracking using infrared lasers, which later became the open SteamVR Tracking standard (licensed for free).
- Two 6DoF controllers in the box; the Oculus Rift had no Touch controllers at launch.
The Relationship with Valve
Valve does not receive royalties directly from Vive sales, but it controls SteamVR. In 2019 Valve released its own Valve Index headset and Knuckles controllers, a direct competitor to the Vive Pro. HTC continued to use SteamVR Tracking and remains its largest licensee.
Organization
- 2016: the Vive division under Daniel O'Brien (Americas) and Raymond Pao (product).
- 2017: Vive X, a VR startup accelerator ($100 million fund) in Taipei, Beijing, Shenzhen, San Francisco and Tel Aviv.
- 2018: Vive Studios, an in-house game studio (Front Defense, Arcade Saga), which later released "Vive Immersive Labs".
- 2019: Alvin Wang Graylin becomes president of China; the "Vive Reality System" and rebranding.
- 2022: VIVERSE and "Vive Arts" (cultural VR projects with the Louvre, Tate and the Palace Museum).
- 2024–2025: part of the XR team sold to Google for $250 million; Vive remains an HTC brand.