On weekday mornings people line up to go diving in central Taipei without getting wet. They take time off work to try a virtual reality system called HTC Vive, which suddenly plunges you the user to the bottom of an ocean where fish swim within snatching distance. Then a full-sized bluish grey whale with an eye the size of your head comes along and nearly whacks you with its tail. It’s real enough that you wonder if you should turn and swim away. There is no visual hint of the original black-walled, bedroom-sized space that Taiwan-based tech icon HTC uses for demos. Above, below, behind and on both sides of you, it all looks like ocean. Of course it’s actually projected by a headset paired with two handheld controllers linked to a PC.
HTC began selling Vive hardware Feb. 29 against just seven major global competitors, nothing compared to the increasingly crowded, dismal smartphone market that the company knows best. HTC stands to be that whale in a still smallish pond of rivals. The headset rests comfortably over your eyes and it’s adjustable for weight and grip. When you move, images projected by the system follow you precisely. A thin blue warning line pops up if you step too close to a wall. Fluidity of movement and a comfortable head fit should sell Vive over competitors, a demo coordinator says. Top peers for HTC’s set that costs $799 include Sony PlayStation VR, DeePoon E2 and Oculus Rift.
“Vive has a certain level of awareness and influence in the virtual reality market,” says Cliff Kung, virtual reality headset researcher with the Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute in Taipei. Its efforts now and later are “believed to help the company boost its smartphone business in the future.”
HTC is struggling to set a new course because Samsung and China’s top hardware brands have knocked its smartphone market share ranking back over the past five years. Despite regular releases of high-end devices and few complaints about technological strength, the 19-year-old developer lacks the marketing intensity or connections with world wireless carriers to catch up. Its global market share among smartphones was estimated at around 3% last year, down from a peak of 10.7% in 2011. It needs something else, and the virtual reality market has been forecast to reach $15.89 billion by 2020 after steep growth from last year.
HTC may still need to do a reality check on Vive’s price, which is higher than all peers compared by the Marketing Intelligence & Consulting Institute. Price matters especially as the developer targets the vast but cost-conscious China market. The package sold now covers two wireless controllers, room-scale movement sensors and a head-mounted display with a built-in camera and phone. (It’s designed to work in a space about the size of a child’s bedroom.) Add to that package three pieces of virtual reality software.
HTC would not disclose pre-orders to date, the only sales channel before a mass rollout next month. But its invitation to the public for trials of 15 minutes per head can only help exposure. Imagine the giddiness of going back to work after grabbing a loaded gun in the game Arizona Sunshine and killing a dozen post-apocalypse thugs who come half-running, half-swaggering at you across the American desert.
