HTC recently shared that it is making a Metaverse smartphone but didn’t provide many details about what that actually means. There is, however, plenty of information about HTC’s other virtual reality products and the concept of VR through a smartphone is not entirely new. With a little imagination, it’s possible to piece together a few more details about what HTC has in mind for this new type of phone.
HTC is a large corporation, founded in 1997 as an OEM manufacturer, building laptops for other brands. In 1998, HTC began making PDAs (personal digital assistants), before moving on to mobile phones powered by Android and Windows Mobile when those operating systems became available. HTC was instrumental in the development of Google’s first Pixel smartphone and Google went on to acquire a large portion of HTC’s smartphone business in 2017. HTC shifted its focus to virtual reality headsets soon after launching the popular Vive brand.
In an interview with Digitimes HTC revealed that it would be making a Metaverse phone and launching it in April. Little else was shared beyond the smartphone’s ability to be used with VR as well as it being a high-end device. While that leaves quite a lot to speculation, there is a good basis to start from. It’s well known that HTC is putting great emphasis on virtual reality and making its own version of the Metaverse, known as the ‘Viverse.’ Also, it manufactures what is technically one of the best VR headsets on the market. Those facts suggest that HTC won’t skimp when it comes to creating a well-made VR solution that’s also a powerful smartphone.
Why Make A Metaverse Phone?
It’s hard for HTC to compete with the incredibly low prices of Meta’s Quest headset. Meta has actually lost billions of dollars in its attempt to stake out a major claim in the Metaverse, and doesn’t appear to be slowing down. The only way to compete is to make superior products and similar services while innovating new ideas. That’s exactly what HTC is doing with its top-quality Vive-Pro and lightweight Vive Flow headsets.
To compete on price, HTC needs to offer even more capabilities in a VR headset, and allowing it to be used as a smartphone is a great solution to this problem. Google and Samsung each made a VR headset that was powered by a smartphone and used as the screen. Perhaps, HTC’s ‘Metaverse Phone’ will take a similar approach with an added emphasis on engineering it with hardware that will make it a great VR device. A VR headset contains much of the same hardware as a smartphone, so it might be as simple as adding additional tracking cameras to the back and including a headset shell to place the phone in. HTC just might be borrowing from the past, to innovate a new dual-purpose headset that helps justify a device that is more expensive than Meta’s.
