So far the HTC Vive has been a surprisingly successful device; surprising not because the hardware is not attractive enough, but simply because the entry-level price is rather high especially for PC users who don’t meet the necessary hardware requirements. Nevertheless, by the end of October 2016, HTC sold more than 140,000 Vive units and the company is said to already be working on a sequel. But as mentioned late last year, while HTC will be present at the Consumer Electronics Show 2017 in Las Vegas later this week, the second Vive will not be shown on stage. Instead, it appears that HTC’s main focus at CES 2017 in regards to the virtual reality market is to showcase and promote new games and applications.
According to reports, HTC is planning to unveil more than 30 new applications for the Vive headset at CES 2017; 23 of which have now been confirmed. In the gaming and entertainment category, HTC will showcase titles including Arcade Saga, Front Defense, The Music Room, Mindshow, The Nest, Knockout League, Racket: Nx, ROM: Extraction, and the highly-anticipated Star Trek: Bridge Crew, which allows up to 4 players to share the bridge of a Starfleet ship and take control of different stations. For enterprise uses (not THE U.S.S Enterprise but rather the enterprise field) HTC has now confirmed a total of 6 new titles, including IBM Speech Sandbox, MakeVR, VR Museum Experience, GE Store VR Experience, Jaguar I-PACE Reveal, and 3DEXPERIENCE Platform. In the health & medical department, the HTC Vive headset at CES 2017 will demo The Body VR, OssoVR, YOUVR, and The Physiology of the Eye. Last but certainly not least, the education field will accommodate applications such as Lifeliqe, Remembering Pearl Harbor, ENGAGE “The Life Project” and Titanic VR.
Aside from presenting these new and upcoming titles, HTC has planned a series of events throughout CES 2017, including a VR and Fitness showcase tomorrow, January 4th. The Taiwanese tech giant will also present mixed reality filming on a green screen and is expected to discuss in more detail about what the near future holds for the HTC Vive platform, virtual reality as a whole, and perhaps what other titles we should expect from HTC and Vive developers in the coming months.