HTC will be not be hosting a press conference at CES 2020.
The VR headset maker held press conferences for the last three years at CES with the Vive Tracker debuting in 2017, Vive Pro in 2018 and Vive Cosmos in 2019. In 2016 at CES the company debuted the Vive Pre and provided press with some of the first hands on time with the headset and its Valve-developed SteamVR tracking technology which paired hand controllers with room-scale freedom of movement.
A company representative confirmed in an email HTC will still be at what’s expected to be the largest consumer electronics event of 2020, but because they just launched the Vive Cosmos recently they’re “demoing the new product and announcing more details at CES this year during 1:1 appointments.”
We should have hands-on impressions soon of the Vive Cosmos SteamVR Tracking faceplate which exchanges the headset’s inside-out tracking system, which is provided via on-board cameras, for one tracked with Valve’s outside-in spinning laser “lighthouse” system.
Cosmos starts at $700, splitting the difference between Facebook’s $400 Rift S and Valve’s $1,000 Index.
HTC appears to be a company in transition with recent departures like Rikard Steiber, who ran HTC’s Viveport VR software subscription service. When Cosmos was revealed at CES 2019 the company provided no hands-on time with the system at all and suggested the PC-powered headset might one day be a convertible system that could be powered by an HTC smartphone as well. The above image was shown during the company’s press conference and, nearly a year later, that remains the only suggestion HTC would offer the feature with Cosmos. HTC didn’t provide hands-on time with Cosmos until right before it shipped late in 2019.
HTC also offers standalone headsets, the Vive Focus and Vive Focus Plus, geared toward the enterprise market.
We’ll bring you updates from CES.
