HTC is planning to share a ‘new vision’ for its Vive VR business in 2020 after pulling out of CES appointments.
Early last month we confirmed that HTC won’t be hosting its traditional Vive Press Conference at CES 2020, which gets underway in Las Vegas this week. We did, however, schedule a 1:1 appointment with the company after it teased “more details” for its Vive Cosmos headset.
Now that’s not happening either.
HTC today contacted UploadVR to postpone our CES meeting. The company confirmed that it no longer has anything to announce at the show this week, but did drop a cryptic hint for the future.
“We’ve got big things in store for 2020 and a new vision for VIVE that we look forward to sharing with you,” a statement from the company reads. HTC plans to have a showing at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona from February 24 – 27, so we’ll likely learn more there, if not sooner.
What exactly could a ‘new vision’ for Vive entail? Over the past few years HTC has placed great emphasis on the enterprise VR market, releasing four headsets (2018’s Vive Pro and Vive Focus as well as 2019’s Vive Pro Eye and Vive Focus Plus) aimed at businesses. The Cosmos, launched in late 2019, is the company’s first consumer-level headset since the original Vive’s launch in 2016. Shortly before Cosmos’ launch HTC CEO Cher Wang stepped down, replaced by Yves Maitre from French telecom company, Orange.
But, at $699, Cosmos has been met with middling critical reception. Whatsmore, the headset hasn’t budged from 0.00% usage on Steam’s monthly Hardware Survey charts. While these charts aren’t official by any means, it doesn’t paint a positive picture.
Could this suggested new direction relate to HTC’s continued presence in either the consumer or enterprise VR markets? Or is this vision perhaps a little less dramatic?
We’ll likely find out in a few weeks’ time. We’ll be at MWC to cover all the latest but, for now, sit back and enjoy our CES 2020 content.
