During an event in China today HTC has officially launched its standalone virtual reality (VR) headset, the Vive Focus, with shipments now underway for those that have pre-ordered the device.
First unveiled during another Chinese conference in November last year, the Vive Focus is HTC’s first all-in-one headset, with no external PC or smartphone needed. Powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor, the headset features inside-out tracking with 6 degrees-of-freedom (6DoF) from two front mounted cameras, enabling users to freely move around a virtual world whilst not bumping into anything in the real one.
Details released by Alvin Wang Graylin, HTC Vive’s China President via Twitter, show the Vive Focus being live demoed to 100 attendees, with both the blue and white version on display. Each headset differs in price with them costing ¥4,299 and ¥3,999 (RMB), the equivalent of $667 and $621(US) respectively. The internal colours are also different; with the Electric Blue having a solid black interior and head straps, while the Almond White headset contains a light shade of grey.
Along with the roll out of the headset HTC Vive also revealed that there would be over 40 pieces of content available on the Viveport mobile store, from videogames like VR Kart: Sprint and Super Puzzle Galaxy to apps that’ll play videos or let users browse the web.
Additional announcements made at the event include a dedicated Vive flagship store coming to Shenzhen, China, in Q2 2018, a one billion RMB fund called Premier VR Ventures co-founded by HTC and the Shenzhen government to support VR and augmented reality (AR) startups, and a study by Cornell University showing how VR can help users lose weight.
Firmly focused on the Chinese market for the launch of Vive Focus, there’s still some doubt over whether the company will be bringing the standalone headset to western shores. With one developer letting slip that it may happen later in 2018, HTC has previously responded to VRFocus with a less than concrete explanation.
The standalone market is set to hot up this year with devices like Pico Goblin and Oculus Go coming to market. As this segment of the market grows, VRFocus will keep you updated.
via Mint VR