Uh, the three countries are the USA, China, and Taiwan. How is that disappointing? Taiwan is HTC's home country and the other two are the two largest economies and countries with direct links to VR: the American companies who are making VR a reality (Valve, Oculus, AMD, Nvidia, etc) and the Chinese and Taiwanese companies making the hardware. The USA also has all the gaming and media companies who make the content.

Considering this is a tiny, tiny industry (less than 50k HMD's shipped this year), its a fairly big step. Give it time and lets see how the market reacts to VR.

I think OP isn't questioning the choice to start with USA/Asia (for the reasons you have stated), but that it is disappointing for devs that are not located in those regions.

Taipei is a really great place to live. (it's also not part of China, by the way)

If being part of this program gives you an excuse to visit, then I recommend it.

"HTC originally stated that the Vive X program would be held in three cities – Beijing, Taipei and San Francisco – however have now added that this is just the beginning. The company is aiming to ‘rolling out across other global hubs in the near future’."

as stated in this article: http://www.vrfocus.com/2016/04/htc-comments-on-vive-x-accele...

I really hope they choose Frankfurt as a stop in Germany. The Crytek guys have awesome stuff in Store for VR and the local gamedev community could build on that experience a lot!

Surely no-where else matters? /s