A StarVR representative told UploadVR its $3200 ultra wide field of view VR headset supports the new VirtualLink VR cable standard.
VirtualLink was first announced back in July. It is a single cable standard specifically for VR which uses the USB Type-C connector. The goal of the standard is to simplify PC VR setup and allow headsets to work on new systems with fewer ports, like laptops or mini PCs. It should also ensure that PCs meeting the standard can deliver enough information and power to upcoming headsets, potentially reducing setup or hardware issues. It is also possible the standardization of PC VR cables will also bring the overall price down as economies of scale and competition drive at the price of hardware.
Currently Facebook’s Oculus, Valve, HTC, and Microsoft are all part of the VirtualLink consortium, but none of these companies have released a headset with a VirtualLink cable yet. It is possible, however, the ‘Rift S’ headset TechCrunch reported Oculus will release next year and the Valve first party headset our sources tell us is in the works would both use VirtualLink. NVIDIA and AMD are also a part of the consortium. AMD hasn’t announced any GPUs with VirtualLink yet, but NVIDIA’s new RTX series of GPUs all feature a VirtualLink port, and the TITAN RTX announced this week does too.
We’ve been reaching out to representatives from StarVR to get clarity about the status of the headset and the overall organization after filings showed minority investor Starbreeze replaced its CEO during a delisting procces in Taiwan just six months after listing shares publicly. The high-end specifications of the StarVR One VR headset were first revealed in August and then its eye-popping price showed up one day in November on the developer program website for the headset. StarVR was originally “founded as a joint venture between Acer and Starbreeze”, and the representative claimed “strong demand” for its $3,200 headset but wouldn’t provide the number of units sold “as applications are still being reviewed.”
