HTC is the latest company to jump onboard the metaverse bandwagon. Just like Facebook parent company Meta, the once-huge smartphone company is creating all sorts of products to capitalise on the new trends.
HTC Viveverse gets metaverse hardware
Reported by VR Scout, HTC vice president Charles Huang has announced multiple products to support the Viveverse. The recently announced Viveverse has been described as a virtual world that will be accessible on a wide range on hardware.
The open-source metaverse platform is said to be usable on a PC or the company's “standalone VR glasses”, Vive Flow. Additionally, the company revealed that the virtual world will be usable on an in-development smartphone designed specifically for virtual reality.
The Viveverse is, like all announced metaverses, vaguely described. The only description of content is described as “interactive worlds, apps, and games”. However, there's no description of what type of apps or games will be available.
HTC moving in on the metaverse buzzword is not surprising in the least. However, the development of a “Metaverse Smartphone” is certainly surprising. Just a few yearsgo, in 2018, the company announced that it would no longer be making any smartphone products.
However, with the idea of the metaverse being entirely cross-platform, it does make sense for the company to jump back into the industry. The company wants to create its own virtual platform and sell the hardware to provide it. Additionally, by pre-installing its metaverse portal on devices, the hardware incentivises access to the service.
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Is the metaverse a good investment for the company?
HTC is not the company it once was. After years of dwindling smartphone sales, the company abandoned the industry to chase its VR platfotm: Vive. With the company already entrenched in the VR industry, the metaverse could be a good bet.
On the other hand, bespoke metaverse platforms are all being designed as a symbiotic product. The Metaverse and its hardware are sold together, hoping that both products will support each other in one push.
This does seem like a risky move. Massive companies like Meta are already losing billions yearly on chasing the metaverse. For a company like HTC, one that's already seen multiple industrial failures, it seems like a last bet.