Hacker News Reader

Comment by mc42 | Hacker News Reader

What leaves me curious is what's to happen of the Vive hardware line that Valve sells made by HTC.

I don't think it really matters. All of the meaningful technology behind Vive (Lighthouse sensors, SteamVR, and the associated IMU firmware) is all developed and licensed to pretty much anyone who wants it by Valve. In the end Vive will be the VR equivalent of the first Android phone. A breakthrough piece of tech which led the way for an entire ecosystem of products to develop, but forgotten and obsolesced in it's own right.

Windows is putting VR into the OS at the driver layer. This will open up a lot of new device opportunities. I am not sure if VIVE has a major competitive advantage in that scenario.

I really hope you're wrong as it is currently the best VR headset on the market and the most promising one as well.

LG is working on a SteamVR headset that uses Lighthouse and seems to be roughly on par, if not better than Vive. https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/2/14769624/lg-valve-vr-heads....

I think OPs point was, even if HTC stops manufacturing Vive there will be Vive quality or better headsets that use Lighthouse tracking, which along with the upcoming knuckle controllers and vive trackers are the real competitive advantage Vive has over Rift or Microsoft MR headsets in PC VR.

HTC has an entirely different division for VR which is not included in this sale.

Most likely its the only profitable part of HTC and is mostly safe from anything negative this acquisition might bring.

I've seen other people state this but never seen a source. Do you know this to be fact? How?

Ah, that would've been interesting for Google to own too, considering they've been dabbling in VR, and have actually created content for the Vive such as the drawing app or Google Earth.

I would be positively surprised if the continued the open approach (no walled garden) that Valve initiated.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com