HTC's Expanding Virtual Reality Offering

While the rumors of a second edition of the HTC Vive were dismissed prior to its appearance at CES 2017, the recent news that most likely relieved Vive customers indicates that HTC has been preparing for an expansion of its existing ecosystem. During this year’s CES, HTC announced a number additions to its VR offerings, including hardware accessories for improvements in audio and motion tracking, in addition to the growth of its app ecosystem. 

One of HTC’s most notable hardware announcements was the introduction of the Vive Tracker, a position tracker designed to be affixed to objects in the real world, enabling users to add interactivity to objects of their choice, such as baseball bats and tennis rackets, both of which were used as examples to demonstrate the technology. The device itself uses the same technology as Vive’s existing hand-held controllers within a more compact format, and is expected to become available in 2Q 2017, as such pricing for the device has yet to be announced. While the device is eventually expected to become available to consumers, HTC is currently targeting developers, encouraging the use of the device to develop new accessories and content for the Vive.

HTC is also working to make wireless VR adaptors for the HTC Vive available for commercial use during 2017. The tethered nature of the device can make movement, while feasible, somewhat impractical and restrictive. The introduction of wireless adaptors for the Vive offers a greater range of motion and reduces potential safety hazards attributed to the presence of wires and cables surrounding the user.   

HTC also announced the introduction of an audio accessory, the Deluxe Audio Strap. The Deluxe Audio Strap integrates headphones directly into the head strap so users no longer need to supply their own headphones like they did previously.

Many of these accessories are expected to be commercially available over the course of 2017, as such further details on each are expected to follow.  

In addition to the improvement of the Vive experience through the availability of new hardware accessories, HTC has been working on improving its selection of content. 

In order to support and encourage the growth of content beyond gaming and in-home media, HTC is making its second addition to its existing storefront. Later this year, HTC expects to introduce an Enterprise-specific version of its existing Viveport store. The Enterprise-specific app store will focus initially on verticals such as; medicine, architecture, design, and training. This follows the announcement of Viveport Arcade, a similar storefront with a specific focus on large scale VR entertainment such as VR cinemas, theme park attractions, and gaming experiences. 

The introduction of the storefronts improves the user experience and the ability to deliver relevant content, which are increasingly important factors as verticals beyond gaming become stronger and a larger selection of content becomes available to businesses and educational institutions who will require easy and efficient access to the relevant content.

In support of this expansion, HTC announced that it is introducing a subscription service for its app store. Availability of content within the subscription service will be decided upon by the content creators themselves, who can elect to make their content available to subscription customers or provide the content as a standalone piece of content. Reworking the way content is accessed by both consumers and enterprise users improves the visibility and access to relevant content to growing areas. Access to content has historically been a problem within the VR space as development work has been centered around hardware. Recent shifts in awareness and a push to improving content and applications began to improve the availability of content. HTC’s efforts work towards ensuring that a growing selection of content can be easily navigated by an existing user base of gamers in addition to enterprises who may be new to the technology. 

HTC’s push to improve its existing ecosystem enables its expansion into growing verticals beyond gaming at an early stage in their exploration of the technology. The company’s decision to focus on improving its existing ecosystem, enabling improvements of the device by providing accessories for its existing device, rather than rolling them into an update of the device, also prevents alienating HTC’s existing customers with the news that an updated product is available so soon after the launch of the first.