First HTC Focus Review!

I agree, it would seem stilted to still be waiting to make a decision on selling in the West.
But we also have to understand that HTC is undergoing a major reorganisation (just changed heads) - they just merged the VR and mobile operations to make best use of the $1.1b they received from Google - and I think they are also looking at a new plan of action to dominate the headset scene through their Intel partnership.

They are about to announce they surpassed the 1m headset sales of the Vive, and I am sure they will make a big thing of that - announcing the launch of Focus to be sold in the West would be a good news story to include with this, but that is pure speculation, as is that they would aim for a E3 date point to announce this move.

The difference between a OGO and Focus is that tracking; we will have to see if the 6DoF tracking offers a major advantage against the 3DoF of the OGO. Just releasing a no-phone GVR against, may be an issue, though there is a lot of excitement for the OGO - if however the market is flat to this release - HTC's wait and see attitude may be the eventual winner.

Looks promising. Maybe we are closer to what we want than it had appeared..

Dear HTC, please give me a job as a VR headset designer. I have no previous experience but after seeing your first two released headsets and the latest headset on the way I can see that this won't be a problem at all lol :D

Yeah, unless i missed it they didn't talk about the tracking of the hands enough - from what we're told, the 4 cameras on the Santa Cruz headset give a great range of hand tracking.

I find it hard to compare SC with the mobileVR platforms. Especially as information on SC is so hard to confirm and nail down (for obvious reasons). The had tracking on both OGO and Focus are not idea - that is for sure.

Hiro_Protag0nist said:

Yeah, unless i missed it they didn't talk about the tracking of the hands enough - from what we're told, the 4 cameras on the Santa Cruz headset give a great range of hand tracking.

It looks like it only has one controller. In fact, it looks very similar to the Go one. It seems like the controller works only by IMU tracking, with no camera tracking at all. That would place Focus somewhere between Go and Santa Cruz, with 6DOF on the headset but not the hands. That said, the controller tracking looks pretty good for not being camera-tracked, although it doesn’t look like it compares to what Oculus showed about SC last year:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RlPZ_EGIv4

Yeah, I see that - it seems that it is a 6DoF standalone - where the difference with OGO is a single controller and 3DoF tracking? The question on the ability to hock up to a PC, and the performance of the headset - those are the real questions, especially as the devs will get the first DK units in June!

I think hooking up to a PC is wishful thinking on the part of consumers. Oculus has never said anything about it or implied that it would be a feature. Who knows though, maybe it will, and we’ll have our CV1.5. 

I agree, it sounded like wish fulfilment, but I try to compile all the rumours before we get the official word!

I think you are right that it will be a hard job to distinguish between OGO and SC if they do not have a major differentiator.

Great review but holy guacamole!! that design!! i imagine it would be very different to what say Apple would do

I guess regardless is good to see VR supported, every new device means VR lives on