HTC is working on their own sales platform - Viveport. An update will add a VR Preview feature to the service. A Viveport VR subscription service is also available. The company is working on a new headset - Vive Pro.
Viveport - HTC's own sales platform got a decent amount of time in the spotlight during the HTC Vive’s pre-CES 2018 press conference. A new upgrade for the platform is being rolled out with the goal of making it easier to use in virtual reality.
Viveport VR will aim to put its users in an environment that'll allow them access to all of Viveport’s content. The new platform will offer ‘VR Previews’. It's exactly what you'd think it is - a VR demo of the game you're looking to purchase. Ah, just like the quaint old days where you would demo something to a customer, instead of just throwing marketing billions at it and even denying review-copies until release day.
HTC
The new upgrade will try to make HTC's sales platform competitive in the market currently ruled over by SteamVR and Oculus Home that was recently updated with Rift Core 2.0.
A Viveport VR subscription service launched recently. The service will provide access to VR titles for a monthly fee. There are north of 1000 games available on Viveport at the moment, with just over 325 of those available for subscription. Also, the VR video player - Vive Video is now pulling in content from Vimeo.
HTC also unveiled their new Pro model. The model comes two years after the original Vive debuted and improves on its predecessor's resolution, head strap and sound delivery system.
HTC
The company is increasing the resolution of the dual-OLED displays to 2880 x 1600 (1400 x 1600 per eye, and 615 ppi), a 78 per cent increase from the 2160 x 1200 (1080 x 1200 per eye) resolution of the current Vive..
Vive Pro's head strap has been redesigned and HTC added built-in headphones. The new head strap now includes a sizing dial. Dual microphones and dual front-facing cameras have been added as well.
HTC's Vive Pro will be backwards compatible with both 1.0 and 2.0 SteamVR tracking, and you can use up to four base stations for room tracking. The current Vive will remain on sale throughout 2018. The company will sell the Vive Pro headset standalone to existing customers this quarter. A full bundle, and pricing, will be available at a later date.
HTC Vive Pro product photography
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