At the end of January, HTC began taking steps to update its brand image to include gaming by sponsoring three prominent League of Legends teams (Cloud9, Team Liquid, and Team SoloMid). Accompanying the announcement of HTC’s participation in esports were rumors that took the form of an ambiguous tease about an upcoming home entertainment product (via The Verge). That product was unveiled today.

But first, Valve also teased us last week with news of showcasing a VR device at GDC, or the Game Developers Conference, in San Francisco later this week. All of this led to today’s announcement at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that HTC and Valve teamed up to build the HTC Vive, a VR headset that stakes claims to define the ideal virtual reality experience, one that “no one has seen before.”

Vive combines Valve’s Steam VR tracking and input technologies with HTC’s world-renowned design and engineering talent, setting a new gold standard for an industry that has, until now, struggled to move beyond concept stage (via HTC Re Vive).

HTC’s Jeff Gattis also mentioned that the Vive will offer 90Hz refresh rate, 360-degree views, and that it’s so light users will be able to wear it for a long time “without feeling weighed down” (via Ubergizmo).

The VR developer edition will be available in the Spring and the consumer edition by the end of the year. More details about the product will be revealed at GDC.

Vive offers the most immersive experience of any VR package, plunging people into other worlds at a moment’s notice. HTC and Valve have introduced a Full Room Scale 360 Degree Solution with Tracked Controllers, letting you get up, walk around and explore your virtual space, inspect objects from every angle and truly interact with your surroundings. Setting a new benchmark for performance, the headset features high quality graphics, 90 frames per second video and incredible audio fidelity (via HTC Re Vive).