HTC has had a bit of a rough ride in recent years. After betting on the farm in VR, the company had to make some substantial changes to business strategy to keep the division in play in the face of a less robust headphone market and a no-margin competitor that is losing a few billion. of dollars.
HTC’s latest game, a new Vive Focus headset that features motion-tracked controllers, might just look like catching up with Oculus and its upcoming standalone Oculus Quest headset, but it’s likely just looking for the pace of innovation to deter. business customers change teams
Vive Focus Plus maintains many of the specifications of the previous generation system, but uses some “visuals” and an interesting new driver tracking system that relies on ultrasonic feedback instead of camera-based optical tracking to locate controllers in 3D space. . The tracking system has a somewhat quirky sound, but Qualcomm developed support for the technology in its VR reference design headset and the Focus Plus is again powered by the Snapdragon 835 chipset, according to a spec list obtained by Road to VR. .
Since the launch of the HTC Vive In 2016, HTC gradually shifted its business to enterprise customers looking to equip their organizations with headsets for training and design visualization purposes. The company has, at times, tried to play both sides, especially with its VR desktop hardware with pricing focused on business customers, but also with marketing aimed at consumers. That’s easier given the Vive Pro’s compatibility with Valve’s SteamVR platform and associated content, but HTC can’t just roam a consumer mobile platform in the US without a more concerted push.
There are no details on the launch date or pricing of the company. The regular Vive Focus starts at $ 599.
