Earlier this morning, HTC Vive made a massive splash with the biggest tweet of the week for virtual reality. The Vive Cosmos is expected in the fall of 2019 (well before the holiday season), and it is nearing the time where we expect more information to be released. If you’re looking to see what HTC might have in store, you can check out what we’ve written about the upcoming Vive headset.
The tweet said that the company is “unlocking” the story of the Vive Cosmos and they have “much” to share. In this upcoming release we can expect the launch date, the specifications of the headset, and even the availability of this headset.
In the tweet above, you can see a nice silhouette of the Vive Cosmos, which doesn’t tell as much as we would hope. What we can see though, is the headphones that will be attached to the headset. This is a big move by Vive, knowing that their competitor, the Oculus Quest, does nor feature any audio other than the built in speakers.
The HTC Vive Cosmos is anticipated to rival the new Oculus Quest. The Quest is a standalone headset that requires no PC, no wires, and no outside tracking. The Cosmos is anticipated to be an all-in-one headset that will nit need any outside computing. The Quest does require a phone or tablet for the initial setup, but after that is truly standalone. This is something we can expect from the Cosmos.
The design on this headset also seems a bit different than the models that HTC has released in past years. The edges of this headset are rounded and flush, rather than bumpy and boxy. This may be a simple design change, or this may also be a indication of something bigger. The Cosmos is anticipated to have inside-out positional tracking for the headset as well as the controllers that will ship with it.
We also know that this headset will be incredibly versatile, yet powerful. There have been rumblings that the Cosmos will be able to run on a PC as well. This means that we could see this new headset be standalone for a more relaxed game or experience, and then connect to your powerful PC for some heavy gaming. This is something we have yet to see in the virtual gaming worlds.
For HTC Vive to get back to being a staple in the VR industry, they need a strong release with their next headset. They have steered away from gaming for sometime with their business-benefiting headsets being produced, but the common consumer needs something more for HTC to stay afloat.
With the enterprise-focused HTC Vive Pro Eye releasing and not making much noise, we can expect HTC to not only make this headset very consumer friendly, and also very public. We can expect a big release of information that they hope will excite the masses.
