It looks like Valve is getting into the VR business without HTC sooner than we thought.
After partnering with the design conglomerate just several years ago, Valve is poised to enter the VR business in earnest with their own hardware: the “Valve Index.” This was announced without warning over the weekend and details are very vague: yep, that’s Valve (minus the nebulous “Valve Time,” as a May 2019 release date was shared).
As The Verge points out there seems to be several wide-angle cameras to prevent any room-based bumps, as well as a slider for folks who might not adjust to VR as well as others. The longstanding wild rumor is that Half-Life 3 will be a VR experience to help sell Valve’s future vision of VR (but not necessarily at launch).
Presumably the headset will focus on Steam, but Valve should leave the ability to connect to the platform’s “Valve VR” concept with the Oculus Rift and existing HTC Vive hardware.
Valve Index [Steam via The Verge]
Source: Destructoid Not April Fools: Valve stealth-announces their own VR hardware