32 PCWorld FEBRUARY 2019NEWS HTC REVEALS TWO NEW VR HEADSETS
five games of your
choosing. That’s
how it’s
functioned up
until now, at least.
One of HTC’s
“major”
announcements
at CES is Viveport
Infinity, which
restructures the
subscription into
a more traditional model, allowing you to
access all the games on the service for a flat
monthly fee. No more picking and choosing.
Is it enough for me to switch to Viveport?
Probably not. But hey, it could be cool for
those who like playing the smaller, more
experimental VR titles. Look for the upgraded
Viveport Infinity on April 5.
More interesting is Vive Reality—not
because of how it functions, but because of
what it represents going forward. VR launchers
were a really exciting feature two or three years
ago, but in 2019? Not so much. HTC feels
pretty late to the party here, announcing Vive
Reality, a social hub and/or immersive launcher
for Viveport, as far as I can tell.
At first I thought that was the whole story,
a non-issue at best. It’d be interesting for
Viveport users, but SteamVR makes the whole
idea redundant.
But HTC made a big show of the Vive
Cosmos being the first device to run ViveReality—so it’s not just a launcher for the
Viveport. In fact, I get the feeling HTC is trying
to freeze Valve out of the Vive Cosmos
entirely. If I’m reading the room right, Vive
Reality might lock down the Vive ecosystem,
constructing a walled garden around what
was originally a more open headset platform.
I’m not 100 percent certain that’s what
Vive Reality represents, but it’s the most likely
explanation I can think of. If that’s the case,
it’s a significant blow to SteamVR—which, for
all Valve’s flaws, is still probably my favorite
(and the most reliable) implementation of a
VR storefront.
There aren’t enough details though—not
for Vive Reality, not Vive Cosmos, not Vive Pro
Eye, none of it. Oculus has mastered the art of
revealing new products. HTC isn’t nearly as
well-oiled a machine. We’ll keep an eye out
for any more tidbits of info from CES, but
failing that? Expect a bunch of news around
GDC, I’d assume.