Community Download: Should HTC Completely Give Up On Consume

Community Download: Should HTC Completely Give Up On Consume

Community Download is a weekly discussion-focused articles series published (usually) every Monday in which we pose a single, core question to you all, our readers, in the spirit of fostering discussion and debate. For today’s Community Download, we want to know if you think HTC should just accept the writing on the wall and completely give up on consumer VR?

Today HTC announced that its upcoming Cosmos Play headset, the cheaper version of its new Cosmos line that seemed marketed as a more affordable consumer option, is now no longer a consumer device at all. In fact, they’re pivoting that headset to focus on enterprise customers instead.

If you’ve been following VR for at least a few years now, this probably doesn’t come as a big shock to you. Following the breakout success of the HTC Vive in 2016 as the first-ever room-scale consumer VR headset, launched in partnership with Valve as the flagship of SteamVR, they haven’t made many choices that put consumers first. From the HTC Vive Pro, Pro Eye, Vive Focus, Cosmos, and now Cosmos Play, not to mention several other variations of those brands, they’ve had enterprise customers at the forefront for a while now.

Back in January we published an editorial covering this exact topic, essentially claiming that HTC is going to need to make this pivot if they want to stay relevant in VR. Seven months later, that notion is coming to fruition it seems.

So, we’ve reached a big fulcrum point here for HTC. The ultimate question hanging over its head, a company that still lists several VR headsets on its website as available to purchase for consumers, including the more expensive higher-end version of the Cosmos, the Cosmos Elite. is: Should HTC finally and completely give up on consumer VR? Why or why not? Should they plan a comeback in the future?