HTC is teasing a new Vive headset.
A new video posted to the company’s YouTube and social media channels titled “HTC VIVE: A Vision for You” shows a silhouette of the new headset at the end of the video. The video description reads:
Passionate people have always found ways to break barriers and redefine the human experience, and with augmented reality we are on the verge of doing the same.
But everything you’ve seen so far is just the beginning of something bigger.
Keep your eyes peeled: what happens next will change the game forever.
In January, Qualcomm, which supplies the chipsets for all standalone headsets except Apple’s, confirmed that HTC would be one of five companies to use the new Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 chipset, a high-end version of the base XR2 Gen 2 used in the Meta Quest 3.
The 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 to be used in Samsung headsets and other devices
Qualcomm has announced the Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2, a higher-end version of the chipset used in the Quest 3.
HTC began its VR efforts through a partnership with Valve, resulting in the original HTC Vive, the first headset with room-scale positional tracking and tracked controllers. It launched in 2016 and accounted for two-thirds of SteamVR usage at its peak. However, HTC and Valve soon went their separate ways, with HTC slowly fading into irrelevance in the consumer market.
HTC’s high-end Vive Pro headset and its successor, the Vive Cosmos headset, never saw 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.
But the company has been moving from a primarily consumer market to the enterprise market, where it’s seen considerable success with both its Vive Pro PC VR headset and its Vive Focus standalone headset.
The Vive Focus 3 was released in 2021 and has a higher resolution than the Quest 3, despite using the older original XR2 chipset. More recently, HTC launched the Vive XR Elite, which uses the same chipset but has a more compact design with color pass-through, and is also available for consumers, but has had limited success in that market.
Keep an eye on HTC in the coming days and weeks, as it looks like the company is gearing up to launch the Vive Focus 4, Vive XR Elite 2, or maybe something entirely new.
