News HTC sells smartphone manufacturing plant, doubles-down on Vive

3D in cinemas works well, it never transferred well to a home environment. VR problem is more cost / content. The lack of things I wanted to try was a large part of the reason I got rid of my pre order.

£300-£400 is a buy it price, £700+ is we will think about it and probably not buy it. Does not help that to play it properly is a 1080 gpu or above.

 

12-18 months they'll hit this price. 2nd gen from HTC, Acer, ASUS, Lenovo will be in 2H of this year I imagine. Tbh I'm surprised it's taken them this long but I expect they're waiting to bring the price down before taking on HTC. At CES Acer showed a 400USD pair iirc. Watch Computex for announcements.

Apple isn't interested in VR. AR/MR, yes, but not VR. Samsung, only as a cheap by-product on mobile

 

In addition to the other replies, my understanding is that they pay a significantly higher chunk of patent license fees than the other players because they don't have a big suite of patents they can slap people around with to negotiate lower fees or cross-licensing agreements. So their profit margins are already lower than an identical pocket computer from, say, Samsung. It has been an albatross on their neck for years, and there doesn't seem to be a way out except buying a company to loot their phone-related patents(which is what MS did with Nokia and Google did with Motorola).


Personally, I have had almost nothing but good luck with my HTC devices.
I say almost because one of them had a software update pushed that took battery life from a day and a half to half a day, and it was the last update they pushed before bumping that device to their no-longer-supported list.
I carried a pocket charger around for several months before I dropped it and broke the screen, because I refused to buy a new PDA over a bungled software update. (It was not a device with strong unofficial OS support, or I would've reflashed it.)

 

The problem is, when the hardware becomes cheap enough for Joe Bloggs to pick one up, the hardware manufactures will run into the issue of people buying a snazzy headset and expecting it to work with their 7 year old HP/Dell/Acer computer that is in the corner of the living room... Tell Joe Bloggs he also needs to invest £600-800 worth of PC upgrades just to get the minimum from it and his enthusiasm is going to quickly fade.

 

I was really keen on VR but so far most games I've seen are 10 minute novelties with terrible graphics. If the visual experience is the central selling point then I can't see it going mainstream until AAA devs start pushing the platform, no matter how good the kit becomes in the meantime.

I think cost is secondary. Enthusiasts often spend hundreds on upgrades just for a single release, or buy a console just for an exclusive. VR needs enticing AAA titles like Deus Ex, Resident Evil etc. Valve could've done a lot if they still developed games. You'd think it would be in their interest when they have their own headset out, but no.

 

For Apple the risk is probably too high, if VR becomes normal they may well jump on the bandwagon, but I wouldn't expect it to happen in the next 2 - 3 years.

As for Samsung, the hundreds of companies they own are so diverse and so deeply embedded in the supply chain of everything else they get a cut regardless of assembling a final product of their own.

 

Valve would force all games to Vive only exclusives, I think both Oculus and Vive are both a problem for VR with the exclusives.

Needs 1 IP only not multiple, blueray vs HDdvd all over again, difference this time neither side has a major kick such as Sony to force a Winner.

If VR cannot get the content and price down they will struggle to be relivent come next year

 

Agreed on the 1 IP. A "gentleman's agreement" on cross compatibility would be a good start to help the platform develop a foothold in the market. Unless they all chuck a Zenimax and start suing each other.

 

I was a HTC fanboy for a long time, but they went downhill when they dropped the "quietly brilliant" slogan. They stopped listening to users, heavily copied Apple / Samsung and regularly gimped specs in certain ways without passing the cost saving on. There is way too much competition in the Mid / High spec segment for mid range specs at premium prices to work. They tried to become one of the leading players but threw away what got them to the position they were in.

They were reliant on "partners" and were way overpriced in the UK, I remember one launch event were they didn't have a UK price as they were leaving it up to their "partners" to decide what price they would be, concensus was it was about £150 more than it should have been. They also released a model where the UK model was lower spec'd than other countries yet cost the same if not slightly more. I moved to OnePlus when the One was released and while I follow HTC and hope they have a decent phone at a sensible price I can jump on, I won't hold my breath. The guys running that company, deserve everything coming to them.