Thursday, March 28, 2024

HTC acquires stake in Virtual Reality Platform WEVR

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josh htc vive

HTC is branching away from just offering smartphones and one of its new branches is in the field of Virtual Reality. Earlier this year, the company announced the HTC Vive VR headset and today, it has announced plans to build its VR ecosystem with the help of virtual reality platform WEVR.

The Taiwanese manufacturer has spent nearly $10 million on a 15 percent stake in WEVR, which is an open VR platform and community based in Los Angeles, USA. With HTC aiming to build the ecosystem and content for its Vive headset, the investment in WEVR is likely to play a crucial part in achieving this.

HTC M9 in video:

The Vive – alongside other non-smartphone products like the Re camera and ReGrip– is a departure from HTC’s traditional product portfolio but a necessity given the company’s dwindling financial performance. The company released its flagship HTC One M9 smartphone earlier this year but despite this, its shares hit a ten-year low as the M9 failed in the face of increased competition from Samsung, LG and other OEMs including Huawei, Xiaomi and ZTE.

We went hands on with the HTC Vive at MWC earlier this year and the headset certainly offers a unique experience compared to other VR products. For HTC however, it needs to deliver a wealth of content in order to persuade customers to actually buy the headset, especially given that it may be more expensive than the incumbent, Oculus Rift.


htc one m9 vs htc one m8 7Related: HTC’s Product Strategy – is it time for a change?301308

Do you think HTC’s Virtual Reality efforts will pay off? Is VR important to you? Have you used a VR headset and if so, which one and what did you think? Let us know your views in the comments below guys!

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