Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Computing
  3. News

HTC’s stand-alone Vive Focus Plus will be out in April, and it won’t be cheap

By
Image used with permission by copyright holder

The HTC Vive Focus Plus offers developers and businesses a stand-alone virtual reality experience that can rival any device on the market, and it’s going to be available very soon. The first headsets will be released on April 15, but they’ll cost you a pretty penny.

Announced during the Vive Ecosystem Conference in Shenzhen, China, the April 15 release date includes 25 different worldwide markets, as well as 19 languages. The Vive Focus Pro will set you back $799, but it isn’t designed as a consumer product like the standard Vive or the Vive Cosmos. Instead, it’s aimed at businesses, and its “six degrees of freedom” system should make it easier for those without VR experience to use it properly. This is in addition to Gaze control, as well as a hazard-spotting feature so you won’t end up bumping into someone while the Vive Focus Plus is on your head.

Recommended Videos

“With the newly added dual [six degrees of freedom] controllers and its multi-mode capability, Vive Focus Plus users not only enjoy native VR content, but also access a huge collection of existing content across devices,” HTC Vive said in a press release. “The new multi-mode capability will be compatible with PC VR, PCs and laptops, smartphones, game consoles, 2D video streaming devices, live 360 camera streaming and upcoming Cloud VR services.”

Image used with permission by copyright holder

Some of its potential uses include an ultra-realistic virtual reality paintball game. HTC Vive explained that the Vive Focus Plus can be paired with haptic vests, meaning users can feel like they’re being hit by paintballs. For family-fun centers and arcades without access to the land for a traditional paintball course, this could be a great alternative.

Related: 
The 8 best TVs for gaming in 2025, as vetted by our experts

The Vive Focus Plus is just one of the wireless headsets VR fans will be able to try, with the Oculus Quest also breaking away from the bundle of cables we’ve come to tolerate over the last few years. The HTC Vive Cosmos will also not feature wires, but it will still need to be tethered to another device in order to run. Still, simply not having to plug in multiple cables before starting a play session sounds like a dream come true.

Gabe Gurwin
Gabe Gurwin
Contributor
Gabe Gurwin has been playing games since 1997, beginning with the N64 and the Super Nintendo. He began his journalism career…
Topics

Editors’ Recommendations

How to build a cheap VR-ready PC

It's been a couple years since the VR renaissance kicked off in earnest, and things are looking up for VR. The HTC Vive and Oculus Rift have now upgraded to the Cosmos and the Rift S, respectively, while Sony's PlayStation VR offers an excellent entry point for console gamers, and there are hundreds of VR titles on the Steam store alone. VR is growing, but some steep barriers to entry are keeping interested enthusiasts from taking the plunge.

The biggest barrier is a simple one: Price. PC gaming is an expensive hobby, and tacking on VR is another $300 to $700, depending on what you buy. But there are some simple ways to save: The secret is building the right PC for your VR system on the cheap, and we know how to do it.

Read more
AMD’s RDNA 4 may surprise us in more ways than one
AMD RX 7800 XT and RX 7700 XT graphics cards.

Thanks to all the leaks, I thought I knew what to expect with AMD's upcoming RDNA 4. It turns out I may have been wrong on more than one account.

The latest leaks reveal that AMD's upcoming best graphics card may not be called the RX 8800 XT, as most leakers predicted, but will instead be referred to as the  RX 9070 XT. In addition, the first leaked benchmark of the GPU gives us a glimpse into the kind of performance we can expect, which could turn out to be a bit of a letdown.

Read more
This futuristic mechanical keyboard will set you back an eye-watering $1,600
Hands typing on The Icebreaker keyboard.

I've complained plenty about how some of the best gaming keyboards are too expensive, from the Razer Black Widow V4 75% to the Wooting 80HE, but nothing comes remotely close to The Icebreaker. Announced nearly a year ago by Serene Industries, The Icebreaker is unlike any keyboard I've ever seen -- and it's priced accordingly at $1,600. Plus shipping, of course.

What could justify such an extravagant price? Aluminum, it turns out. The keyboard is constructed of one single block of 6061 aluminum in what Serene Industries calls an "unorthodox wedge form." As if that wasn't enough metal, the keycaps are also made of aluminum, and Serene says they include "about 800" micro-perforations that allow the LED backlight of the keyboard to shine through.

Read more