Most XR and VR headsets these days want to be about everything except gaming, despite it being the largest demographic for headset buyers. Well, no longer. HTC Vive just launched a new VR headset called the Focus Vision, and it’s being explicitly targeted at PC gamers.
While it shares a name with Apple’s Vision Pro, HTC is targeting different markets such as PC VR gamers, in addition to location-based VR venues and enterprise users.
The Focus line of Vive headets have been more oriented toward those latter use cases, which makes the Focus Vision a slight departure, though HTC clearly still has location-based venues in mind. The Vive Focus Vision is designed to quickly adjust for multiple users with quick-swap battery packs, automatic IPD adjustment, and easily replaceable face and head pads.
As a Vive Focus model, it’s not as svelte as the Vive XR Elite, which earned a place on our guide to the best VR headsets for your PC. HTC Vive designed the Focus Vision to be an adaptable and durable headset with room for advanced features like eye-tracking and visually lossless DisplayPort quality.
The Focus Vision comes with two controllers, but eye-, hand-, and environment-tracking means you can navigate settings and some apps with only your hands. Improved passthrough 16MP cameras support high-quality stereoscopic mixed-reality experiences.
The headset features a sharp 2448 x 2448 resolution, wide 120-degree field of view, and 90Hz refresh rate. This is an improvement over the specs of the Vive XR Elite, notably with its higher resolution and slightly wider field of view. In fact, the specs match up with the more Enterprise-targeted Vive Focus 3, although that headset costed a few hundred dollars more.
There’s even an option for 120Hz refresh rates via DisplayPort that should arrive before the end of 2024.
The HTC Vive Focus Vision has a Qualcomm Snapdragon XR Gen 1 chip so it can work as a standalone VR headset and run Viveport games and apps. It’s loaded with 16GB of memory, 128GB of storage, and has a microSD card slot to expand storage up to 2TB.
For consumers, the HTC Vive Focus Vision sells for $999 and is now available for preorder at the Vive website. Customers that purchase before October 17, 2024, will receive a free Vive Wired Streaming Kit, which normally costs $149. The Business Edition costs $1,299.
In many ways, this is old-school premium PC VR, which has fallen out of favor compared to the popular and more mainstream Quest 3. That headset will likely remain a popular option because of its affordable price, but the Vive Focus Vision is targeting a different demographic. It’s worth noting that Meta Connect is just next week, where the company is expected to launch its next VR headset, reportedly called the Quest 3S.
