A new, “next-genetation HTC Vive standalone headset will release in 2021.
Alvin Wang Graylin, President of Vive in China, revealed as much in an interview with TeliportMe last month (as spotted by Nathie), two weeks before HTC itself teased a possible new hardware reveal. Asked if the company would release a competitor to the Oculus Quest this year, Graylin replied: “I think we’ve said in the past that we will release a new AIO [all-in-one] this year. I don’t think I would position it as a Quest competitor. I think it’s our next-generation standalone, we will have one this year, it is going to be a great product.”
New HTC Vive Standalone Headset On The Way
Graylin declined to provide specs for the new device but did tease that it was better than HTC’s current products “from every perspective” and that “it’s probably better than what’s out there from any vendor today.” Well, that’s quite a claim.
It’s very possible that this standalone and the new product Vive’s Twitter is teasing are one and the same, but it could just as easily be something else. For starters, many of Vive’s recent teases surrounding last week’s tweet hint at something focused on VR tracking. Plus, as President of Vive in China, Graylin’s comments might not necessarily be aimed at a product that will release worldwide, at least at first.
Either way, there’s a lot to pick apart here. Firstly, Graylin calls the standalone the company’s “next-generation” version, which could mean it’s a direct successor to the Vive Focus. In the West, Focus was released as an enterprise-level device with no consumer option, which would explain why this new standalone might not be a Quest competitor, even if its specs do indeed surpass Facebook’s headset. If it is an enterprise device, it’s likely that the kit would be too expensive to compete with the $299 Quest 2 anyway. Focus also released in China months before it arrived around the rest of the world.
We’ll have to wait until HTC is ready to reveal all on this front. Until then, what would you want to see out of a new HTC Vive standalone headset? Let us know in the comments below!
