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HTC Vive Focus Release Date Scheduled For later This Year

by | Mar 23, 2018 | News, News Section, Videogames

HTC Vive Focus Release Date Scheduled For later This Year

by | Mar 23, 2018 | News, News Section, Videogames

The Game Developer’s Conference has been pouring over with great announcements and reveals all week and HTC was a big part of that with their Vive Focus announcement. The HTC Vive Focus, a VR headset that launched exclusively in China last year, will go on sale around the world later this year. And for developers, the Vive Focus developer kits officially became available this week in ‘most countries.’

According to HTC, the “Vive Focus is the first 6DOF stand-alone VR headset to be commercially available.” It doesn’t require a smartphone or a computer for use and is a fully standalone unit. 

HTC Vive Focus

HTC didn’t reveal any pricing details about the Vive Focus in their announcement, but based on it’s Chinese price, we can estimate that the Focus will land somewhere in the $600 range. That means it’ll likely be significantly more expensive than one of its biggest competitors, the Oculus Go.

The Go is Oculus’ own standalone VR headset that’s scheduled to come out in May of this year. It’s similar to the Focus in that it doesn’t require any computer, phone or wires to run it, but the Focus does appear to be touting considerably higher specs. Those higher specs come with a price tag that is likely to be about triple that of Oculus Go, though.

This is where the big question mark comes in for HTC. It isn’t too clear exactly who their target audience is. The Oculus Go is clearly geared towards people who think VR is really cool, but not people who are hardcore gamers and who have the means to support the much more advanced Oculus Rift. The Go’s $199 price tag fits that audience pretty well.

Oculus Go Picture

On the flip side, the Focus at $600 seems a bit pricey for people who simply think VR is cool. If you’re willing to drop that much money on the device, chances are that you probably also have the means to buy the $800 Vive Pro, a device that is endlessly better than the Focus and which already has a vast library of content.

If the Focus had a lot of great, quality content, then it might be able to find a nice audience at the price range, but as it stands now, there’s a very limited content library for the focus. Plus, we can’t forget about the $400 Mirage Solo with Daydream that’s scheduled to make its debut in June. The Mirage Solo is another standalone VR headset and it’s priced directly in the middle of its biggest two competitors. 

All that aside, the Vive Focus looks like a fantastic VR headset running some impressive specs considering. Technologically speaking, it’s likely to be a more capable device than anything similar offered on the market this year. But with three distinctly different price points, there’s no telling who’ll rise to the top of the standalone VR market.  

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Don’t forget to check out some of our other weekly pieces, The LoL Weekly Preview, Recap and Highlight, as well as something I’m Forgetting and Week in Review.

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