Valve Begins Shipping Its Index VR Headset To US Consumers

Valve has started selling the Index VR headset Full Kit through its Steam store and is now shipping the hardware to consumers in the US. The headset, which was announced earlier this year comes at a price of $999 if you want the entire kit, which comes with everything you need to immerse yourself in virtual reality and start playing some games, short of the PC of course.

Though the Kit is probably the best way to go for most people who want the complete package and the best possible experience, it’s not the only way one can buy the newest member of the virtual reality hardware market. Valve is also selling the Index controllers, headset, and base stations as separate purchases, you can also purchase just the headset and the controllers in a bundle without the base stations, and of course the kit will come with all of it.

The headset by itself retails for $499 while the controllers are $279 for a pair, and the pair of base stations goes for $149. The headset and controller bundle retails for $749. Basically as a consumer you have multiple options here.

This isn’t the first time the headset has been on sale. Valve actually started selling the Index immediately upon launch earlier this year but the $999 kits were back ordered right away as Valve didn’t anticipate the demand being higher than the amount of Index kits it had to sell.

This caused Valve to think that it wouldn’t be fulfilling those back orders until almost October. Luckily for anyone that wasn’t able to get their hands on the Index kit the first time around all of those orders have been fulfilled and now anyone can buy the kit and have it shipped the very next business day.

Valve is keen on letting people know about this opportunity, too. If you scroll all the way to towards the bottom of the Steam store using the Steam client or the Steam website, Valve is advertising that the Index kit is available now under its Updates and Offers section.

You’ll also be able to spy it in the Featured and Recommended section that sits at the very top as Steam cycles through various recommended game titles. Clicking the little arrows on the right or left to navigate through them manually reveals the headset’s availability.

Now that the Index bundles and the headset itself are shipping to US consumers expect shipping to begin happening soon in other regions where Valve is selling it, and expect to see the headset advertised on the front page for a little while.

If you live in the EU the Index is shipping to 30 different countries including Austria, Croatia, Italy, Germany, France, Poland, Sweden and more, and if demand is high enough, than Valve plans to start looking at the demand for the hardware in other regions and decide when or if it expands outside of the US and EU territories where it can already be purchased and shipped. If you’re in the US, hardware will be shipped via FedEx while EU purchases are shipped using either DHL or GLS.