HTC's next headset said to take VR industry 'to another level'

HTC has been quiet about its plans for its next VR headset to the point that many people have speculated that the company has shifted its sights away from the consumer VR space. While we don't know if it will be a consumer or enterprise device, HTC's Alvin Graylin confirmed that new innovative Vive products are coming next year.

Alvin Graylin, President of HTC China, recently sat down for an extended interview with Daniel Colaianni and Nick Rosa at The Academy of International Extended Reality (AIXR). During the talk, Graylin talked about his history, including his family. He spoke about the early days of launching the HTC Vive headset. And near the end of the interview, he dropped one heck of a bomb of a scoop. He gave some hints about possibly more than one upcoming Vive headset.

One of the last questions that Colaianni and Rosa posed was an attempt to get Graylin to describe what the next Vive "would look like." Unsurprisingly, Graylin couldn't give a direct response to that question, but he did reveal more than we would typically expect.

"Unfortunately, I am not allowed to talk about future devices, but I will say that we do have devices coming out in 2021," said Alvin Graylin, China President, HTC Vive. "And I think it will be breakthrough devices that people will have that same level of excitement as they did in 2016 when we came out with the initial Vive. So, I'm actually quite excited about what's coming, and I think it will take the industry to another level."

While incredibly vague, these statements tell us at least one thing: HTC isn't done bringing innovation to the VR sector. It was the first company to bring room-scale VR to consumers, the first company to bring full-body tracking to consumers, and it was the first company to bring wireless VR to market. The Vive Cosmos didn't introduce much in terms of "next-level" VR features, but the next Vive headset could be something special. We don't have a clue what the next level of VR would look like, though.

Hopefully, we'll learn more at CES in January.