htc-vive-steamvr-controllers-2 — See Also: New Images for 2nd HTC Vive Developer Kit Supposedly Leaked

HTC CEO Claims “Very, Very Big” Vive Breakthrough to be Shown at CES

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Dec 19, 2015

HTC’s CEO Cher Wang has gone on record stating that one of the reasons for the recently announced delay to the release of the Steam VR powered HTC Vive VR headset was to incorporate the latest “very, very big technological breakthrough”.

HTC haven’t had the smoothest of rides recently, with questions over the company’s financial stability and then news that their great white hope, the Steam VR powered HTC Vive VR headset, wouldn’t make its announced 2015 release date.

See Also: New Images for 2nd HTC Vive Developer Kit Supposedly Leaked — See Also: New Images for 2nd HTC Vive Developer Kit Supposedly Leaked

However, it seems the company is trying to counter the negative press with some high profile statements emanating from a high profile source on the matter. The source in question is HTC’s CEO Cher Wang, and according to her, the recently announced delay – that the Vive will now ship to consumers after the Oculus Rift in April 2016 – was for very good reasons.

She’s gone on record with Engadget stating that the decision was made in the wake of “a very, very big technological breakthrough” with the Vive, and that the delay was to save consumers having to consider a two tier VR headset, with a higher specc’ed unit potentially appearing shortly after the December released hardware. The system still is now slated to go up for pre-order in February 2016.

See Also: HTC Vive VR Headset Gets New Branding as Tour Visits Taiwan — See Also: HTC Vive VR Headset Gets New Branding as Tour Visits Taiwan

No information on what this technological breakthrough might be, but it seems we’ll find out at the annual CES in January, where a new version of the headset will apparently be demonstrated. Recently leaked images may indicate what this new version will look like, at least superficially – as we covered just last week.

HTC's Vive Ultimate Trackers Now Compatible with All SteamVR Headsets

Either way, Road to VR will be on the ground at CES as always, ready to track down whatever new we can on the updates.

lanthas

Well well, what could it be… Looking forward to the reveal. Let’s just hope it’s more interesting than Oculus’s latest “special announcement” :)
- brandon9271
  
  I have a feeling it’s a higher res screen and possibly something to do with the front facing camera on the front of the Vive.. Perhaps it scans your room using some sort of photogrammetry. Maybe they’ve even incorporated eye tracking! :)
  - Mario Baldi
    
    Eye tracking on first-gen VR would be huge!
  - lanthas
    
    Keep in mind that whatever it is, it apparently only took 4 extra months to implement. And a higher resolution screen would mean further raising the already high performance demands for the host PC.
    - brandon9271
      
      Unless they use foveated rendering! ;) keep in mind that you don’t have to render at native resolution. So even without the eyetracking I’m sure they could render at half native res and then perhaps only render the HUD at full resolution. Text would be readable and GPU wouldnt be working too hard.
  - Jonny
    
    A higher res screen is hardly a technological breakthrough. We can’t forget that the market actually has to have the hardware to run games with the VR headsets, so even if the can put 4K screens in there, it would be financial suicide since hardly anyone has the horsepower to run it.
    - erikbjareholt
      
      Just because you have a 4K screen doesn’t mean you have to render in 4K.
brandon9271

4k screen. You heard it here first!
PS. Halflife 3 confirmed. ;P
- Tsunvsmoon
  
  4k screen? makes perfect sense, I’m sure everyone without x4 titans will be able to run it.
  Halflife 3? keep dreaming! you will get 16k screen version of the htc vive before that happens :)
  - RockstarRepublic
    
    HL3 is already in development, its been known for quite some time. Its been seen on Valve bug tracker lists as well as developers working on it. Just have to wait for Gabe to make it “official”.
    - Tsunvsmoon
      
      I never said it wasn’t in development. you might get to play it in 10 years though, I’m sure I read somewhere that a very small team was working on it a few years back then they got pulled off it to focus on other projects.. it’s all conjecture and rumours though but like i said.. it is definitely not the announcement ;)
      - Jim Cherry
        
        Some leaked content from the canceled half life 2 episode 3 came out this fall.
George Vieira IV

Is “hardest” in the 3rd paragraph suppose to be “harness”?
- lanthas
  
  Negative press about your own company is surely not something you “harness” – more like “counteract”. I do wonder where the “hardest” came from though…
Tsunvsmoon

I dont care anymore what HTC / Valve have planned and what their big announcement will be. I will be purchasing a rift as Oculus have been more forthcoming with information compared to HTC and that’s saying something. More information about upcoming titles have been released pretty much every day and oculus support looks amazingly strong at the moment. from HTC / Valve? hardly anything!
- Peter Everett
  
  Dude everything thats compatible with steam vr works on the vive…
- Fatriff
  
  Looks like Peter Everett just handed you your ass.
Johan Romero

hopefully a better tracking system for half the cost like Jack McCauley was describing on his twitter:

http://www.roadtovr.com/former-oculus-vp-engineering-reverse-lighthouse-positional-tracking-smartphone-jack-mccauley/

https://twitter.com/mccauleylabs
Peter Everett

100bux says its wireless using that light wifi (lifi?) Cos its up to 100 times faster
- Pavel Paratov
  
  That would be great!
- Sibbo
  
  Would be nice but to be completely untethered would require a battery which they wouldnt want to add to the weight of the headset so would need to be some sort of waist belt type affair. It would be suprising given that the last year or two of work has been related to achieving the sweetspot in refresh latency with a wired solution. To be able to do it with a wireless solution would certainly be a ‘very, very big breakthrough’. It must be a fundamental hardware shift though for them to delay.
  - Anthony Kenneth Steele
    
    pocket battery. That’s what i use for gear vr
RockstarRepublic

Haptic feedback for your face?
Liam Mulligan

Itd be nice if it was a 4k screen switchable to a lower res for hardware support. Im thinking it will be more camera related for hand tracking without the controllers. Whatever it is itll be worth the wait. On another note why is there so much reference to betrayal, delays happen just ask sixense haha ill never see my stem system but its kinda comical :)
Doctor Bambi

Just cause it’s fun to speculate what this amazing new feature might be… What if it’s integration with the next htc flagship phone? So like, you can use the vive just like we’ve all seen, but if you need your VR on the go, you could remove the vive display and attach a chassis that fits your HTC M10. The camera on the bottom of the vive would be capable of basic mobile head tracking. It’s outlandish, but it would be something Oculus couldn’t offer. And it would possibly help support their other hardware which has been struggling recently.
erik

Which one of the Rift and the Vive is most open-source friendly? I’m a hobby developer but don’t wanna register my apps to get an API key or something like that.