The Vive Focus Plus will get Oculus Quest-like controllers.
HTC
What’s the price of great standalone VR? Facebook says it’s $399. HTC says it’s $799. HTC has revealed the price and release date of its newest self-contained VR headset, the Vive Focus Plus, and it’s considerably more expensive than the also-soon-to-arrive Oculus Quest.
The Vive Focus Plus arrives April 15, HTC announced Monday at its Vive Ecosystem Conference in Shenzhen, China. That’s twice the cost of Facebook’s Oculus Quest, which runs off a similar Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor and also has self-contained six-degrees-of-freedom tracking and dual controllers. The Oculus Quest is expected this spring, perhaps as soon as Facebook’s F8 conference. (UK and Australian details weren’t announced, but $799 converts to about £600 or AU$1,100.)
The Vive Focus Plus is meant for businesses, unlike the Oculus Quest, which will have a more games-focused curated library. The Vive Focus Plus promises improved visuals via new Fresnel lenses — kind of like in a lighthouse — and its dual wireless controllers should provide more PC-like full-motion 6DoF tracking, as opposed to the single 3DoF controller that came with the first Vive Focus.
HTC will be looking for more installation-based uses for the Vive Focus Plus, including virtual arcades and theme parks, and it could be more flexibly connected to accessories as opposed to the Oculus Quest. At the Shenzhen conference, the Focus Plus will be paired with haptic vests and connected to 40-player multiplayer games in open spaces, according to HTC. It could end up being a replacement platform for bulkier setups like PC VR backpacks.
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