Wednesday, 24 July, 2024 UTC
Summary
HTC is teasing a new Vive headset.
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At the end of a new video posted across the company's YouTube channel and social media channels titled HTC VIVE: A Vision for You, the silhouette of the new headset can be seen. The video description reads:
Dedicated people have always found ways to break down barriers and redefine the human experience. Through extended reality, we set out to do the same.
Yet everything you’ve seen has only been the start of something greater.
Keep your eyes open — what’s coming next will change the game for good.
In January Qualcomm, the company that supplies the chipsets for all non-Apple standalone headsets, confirmed that HTC will be one of the five companies to use its new Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 chipset, a higher-end variant of the base XR2 Gen 2 used in Meta Quest 3.
XR2+ Gen 2 will also be used in Samsung's upcoming headset, Sony's standalone headset, Immersed's Visor, and Play For Dream MR.
Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 Announced For Samsung Headset & More
Qualcomm just announced Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2, a higher-end variant of the chipset used in Quest 3.
UploadVRDavid Heaney
HTC began its journey in VR through a partnership with Valve that spawned the original HTC Vive, the first headset with room-scale positional tracking and tracked controllers. It successfully launched in 2016, and at its peak it accounted for two thirds of SteamVR usage. HTC and Valve seemingly went their separate ways soon after though, and HTC began a slow spiral to irrelevance in the consumer market.
HTC's higher-end Vive Pro headsets and follow-on Vive Cosmos headsets were never able to achieve the same success as the original Vive, especially after Valve released its own Index headset, and today HTC headsets account for less than 7% of SteamVR usage.
The company has mostly transitioned from the consumer market to the enterprise market though, where it has seen decent success with both its Vive Pro PC VR headsets and Vive Focus standalone headsets.
Vive Focus 3 launched in 2021 and still has higher resolution than Quest 3, though uses the old original XR2 chipset. More recently HTC launched Vive XR Elite with the same chipset but a more compact design with color passthrough, and it's also offered to consumers, though has seen limited success in that market.
We'll keep a close eye on HTC in the coming days and weeks as it seems to be gearing up to launch a Vive Focus 4, Vive XR Elite 2, or something entirely new.