HTC are not saying whether they will launch their new HTC Vive in Australia, or whether they have already spoken to retailers about ranging their new reality headset which is set to be launched at CES along with what has been described as “Some previously unseen innovations” at CES 2016 in January.
HTC co-founder Cher Wang has claimed the long-awaited HTC Vive virtual reality headset has been totally redesigned since SmartHouse first saw and played with a version at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. However, SmartHouse suspects that the mobile phone smartphone Company is struggling to release a competitive version as the original early December release date has come and gone.
Speaking at the Vive Unbound developer’s forum in Beijing, Wang claimed the new advancements had forced HTC to skip the original version and ship a new and improved Vive headset in 2016.
“We shouldn’t make our users swap their systems later just so we could meet the December shipping date,” Wang said.
The advancements are likely to see the scheduled release date slip to Q2 2016.
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Judging by Wang’s comments, it seems like the new advancements, whatever they may be, may also bump up the price.
She said: “Why would I buy a handicapped product? You won’t like it.”
That may also be a sideswipe at the lack of object tracking in the Oculus Rift, but could also reference plans to charge more for the Vive headset.
Do these words make you more excited for the HTC Vive? Or do you think it may just be stalling tactics?
Either way we’ll find out at CES in a couple of weeks, in what is sure to be a hugely VR-centric show.
The April 2016 release could see HTC trying to sell a VR headset at twice the price of their premium top end smartphone.
After some pushing from journalists at the weekend, Wang finally gave a vague hint: In a recent survey conducted with her engineers, 80 percent of the group raised their hands when she gave a price considered to be affordable for them, based on their pay.
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According to recruitment site Glassdoor, the base salary of a software engineer at HTC ranges from about US$1,560 to US$1,730) per month.
In other words, over $2,000 in Australia.
Images of the consumer versions of the HTC Vive and its motion controllers were recently leaked online via Reddit.
A set of eagle-eyed Reddit users unearthed some new images on the Vive developer site, which seemingly show the final versions of the headset and controllers.
The headset has been modified and smoothed out, with the sensors hidden and the wires contained within an additional headstrap.
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HTC’s logo has also been taken off, and there’s a new camera located at the bottom of the headset in the centre.
But it’s the controllers that have had the most revamping. So far, we’ve only used 3D-printed versions of the controllers, but these look far more complete and sleek.
The touchpads have become more raised and buttons have been slightly rearranged, probably to keep them within better reach.
Most noticeably though, The usually hexagonal heads have become circular, with all the sensors covered.
Hopefully these images are indicative of what the final consumer versions will be like, but we expect we’ll hear more at CES 2016 in January.
