Google’s Daydream View headset and the Daydream platform in general are promising and aim to offer up a lot of great content to users who have the compatible hardware. Still, though, even with all of that promise and potential the Daydream platform still needs improvement, much in the way of adding more content, as that would actually help quite a bit. Beyond that, Google’s recent deal with HTC where it essentially snapped up the team from HTC that was working on the Pixel hardware could mean great things for Daydream.
While this isn’t the same as having the Vive team on board to really lend some expertise to future hardware and advancements for the platform, the Pixel hardware is a premium set of hardware and having the team members in-house to potentially help with future Daydream hardware (after this new headset that’s due out sometime in the near future), and as the deal basically helped HTC with a number of things, it bolsters Google’s relationship with HTC and the rest of the company that didn’t make the move to Google. This could be good for Google as it could prompt HTC to help with Daydream in addition to Google now having a new fresh set of talented employees that can usher in a new, more premium Daydream headset next year and beyond. Google has plenty of partners with Android and even has a few with Daydream now, with more likely to come in the future, but HTC has been its longest-standing partner since the beginning of Android, and that’s carried over to the Daydream platform as HTC was one of the first partners here just as it was Google’s first partner with the Android platform, which is resulting in HTC’s upcoming standalone Daydream headset that is expected to launch rather soon.
While the deal with HTC might not result in those team members helping Google with a future Daydream headset that’s better than the first and potentially better than the second headset that is supposed to launch following Google’s event on October 4th, but as mentioned, it did help HTC with not only unloading a significant load of work that the company was having to focus on – the Pixel hardware, giving HTC more time to focus on other endeavors – but it also helped HTC with a big payout that was around $1.1 Billion, something which will certainly give HTC a little bit of a boost in a time when it’s still having problems with profit. HTC intends to continue making smartphones on its own, and that cash is going to help it do what it wants to do. Something which HTC could repay by injecting the Daydream platform with new life and new features, like Viveport access, for example.
As has been said a number of times before, content is king and if HTC were to help to bring more content to the platform, and not just more content but better content, then other companies might follow and do the same thing, which would ultimately lead to a faster growing platform and library of apps and games for Daydream. More apps and more games would probably mean more interest from consumers, which could lead to sales, and that could make Google happy. Sure, improving Daydream in this way isn’t necessarily going to be that simple, but it’s definitely possible for this deal to lead to bigger and better things for Daydream both for Google and for consumers.