HTC and Valve's upcoming virtual reality headset, the HTC Vive, presented some more significant changes when exhibited in CES 2016.
Almost during the whole conference, HTC's Vive truck- where the HTC Vive was available for test runs- was full packed in reservations. According to a post by HTC Vive on Twitter, some eager users had to wait as long as 3 hours to get a trial run on the VR headset built by HTC and Valve.
The HTC Valve has changed ever since the last time it was seen. In an interview with PC Gamer, HTC vice president Daniel O'Brien shared what some of those changes were. "We redesigned the headset from the ground up, from the gasket fit and finish, and we're creating a removable gasket, because we learned we all have different human geometry." O'Brien said to PC Gamer.
"We have wide faces, we have narrow faces, and faces that wear glasses with wide and narrow fit, and we wanted to account for all those scenarios."
The HTC Vive Pre, which is what the company is calling the pre-launch prototype that was made available for trial at CES, is much smaller than the previously seen model as HTC has made the whole hardware side of the product more compact.
Another feature that differentiates the Vive from other VR headsets is its Chaperone feature, which is marked by a front-facing camera that detects whether a player is about to slam into a wall. As the camera detects an obstruction to a player's pathway, it notifies the user before he or she even hits the object or obstacle. The Chaperone feature is what some analysts have referred to as the "very, very big technological breakthrough" that HTC CEO Cher Wang told people at the Vive Unbound developers forum in Beijing.
According to Digital Trends, it is expected that the HTC Vive will cost more than the Oculus Rift, which has started pre-selling at $600, and will most probably arrive in April.
