HTC has announced a new partnership with Valve at Mobile World Congress, launching its first virtual reality headset running Steam VR.

Named RE Vive, the new headset features most of the normal features for immersive VR, including two 1200 x 800 displays with 90 frames per second capabilities; the dual displays allow for full 360-degree immersion.

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HTC also claims this is the first VR headset to allow the user to "walk around the room," simply meaning it has a large depth range compared to competitors like Oculus and Samsung.

Even though it runs on Steam VR, HTC is clearly looking more towards the "experiences" rather than games, potentially allowing users to view virtual fairytales, concerts and places in the world on the headset.

Valve has created a Steam VR Base Station, allowing the user to walk around a room and map out footsteps, without the need for a controller to take away from the immersion; the space station will be 15 feet by 15 feet.

"We believe that virtual reality will totally transform the way that we interact with the world, said CEO Peter Chou at the Barcelona event. "Virtual reality will become a mainstream technology for the rest of the world."

Steam VR was only announced a week ago, but it is clear Valve has been working on this for a few years. The system could support more than just games, and having a multi-media VR setup could push Valve way ahead of Oculus.

The huge surge in Steam's popularity over the past decade also means Valve beats Oculus when it comes to games, making the US$2 billion investment by Facebook look a little wacky.

Still, having HTC on board does not necessarily mean big sales. Even though HTC wants a consumer version out by the end of the year, Valve may need to launch its own headset to truly take advantage of some of the more in-depth features.

We will get a better look at the device at the Game Developer Conference in the upcoming weeks, where Valve will have an active presence showing off Steam VR and Steam OS.

TagsHTC, Virtual Reality, Mobile World Congress, Steam VR, Vive VR, MWC 2015