Vive, the upcoming virtual reality headset from Valve and HTC, is aiming to offer the "most premium VR experience the world has ever seen," according to marketing boss Jeff Gattis. That also means the headset won't be cheap, Gattis told MCV in a new interview.

"We want to deliver the most premium VR experience the world has seen," he said. "That's not marketing speak, but more about where Vive is positioned in the market. This is at the high end. Starting with the premium experience, even if it has a slightly higher price point, is the right thing to do from a strategic point of view."

"To get the broader consumer adoption we're all hoping for, the industry will have to drive price down to make it more accessible" -- Jeff Gattis

Gattis didn't name a price outright for Vive, but stressed that, like basically all major technology products, price will likely fall over time.

"The price can always come down as the market grows. We know there is some pent-up demand there, so there's not so much price sensitivity early on," he said. "But to get the broader consumer adoption we're all hoping for, the industry will have to drive price down to make it more accessible."

Overall, Gattis made it clear that HTC "understands the importance" of dropping price over time as a means to bolster widespread adoption of Vive.

The matter of cost is one of the biggest lingering questions about virtual reality headsets across the board. Neither Valve/HTC nor Oculus VR (Oculus Rift) nor Sony (Project Morpheus) have announced price points for their respective headsets. Vive is due to launch this year for consumers, while Morpheus is releasing in 2016. All we know about the Oculus Rift consumer model is that it probably won't debut this year.

Also in the interview, Gattis said gaming will be just one area of focus for Vive. Virtual reality technology, he said, has the opportunity to impact other major industries such as film, education, and training.

"Gaming is the obvious pushing off point because there's pent-up demand there, but we've really looked at it from a broader point of view," he said. "We've announced partnerships with HBO, Lionsgate, and Google--we're looking at entertainment, education, and training experiences."

It's not just HTC and Valve that are eyeing non-gaming markets for virtual reality. Oculus has formed an internal virtual reality film-making division and also sees the technology as a way to help bring people together, albeit virtually. To demonstrate its point, Samsung, which is working on the Oculus-powered GearVR headset, live-streamed a baby boy's birth to a headset-wearing father thousands of miles away.