Sometime back we reported that HTC might stage yet another comeback with a metaverse phone. And now the company has confirmed that this is indeed happening.
HTC teased the launch of its upcoming smartphone via Twitter and while the post didn’t reveal much about the phone itself, it left no scope of imagination around its marquee feature. All it has is an outline of a phone, a few hashtags, and mentions of HTC and Viverse brand names.
Log in to the Future2022.06.28#HTC #VIVERSE #Seeyousoon#Createmymetaverselife pic.twitter.com/YwiE3B0r9UJune 9, 2022
For those unaware, Viverse is HTC’s version of the metaverse and the company describes it as “an interoperable ecosystem where different content platforms interconnect to form a seamless user experience in a decentralized, secure, and open way.”
The upcoming phone was first teased at the MWC earlier this year when HTC’s Asia-Pacific general manager Charles Huang confirmed the plans to launch the World’s first Web3 phone. And from HTC’s definition of Viverse, it seems that the phone can somehow connect or power the content on a user’s VR headset.
HTC has hinted that the upcoming phone will have flagship specifications, however, there are absolutely no leaks and rumours that lets us visualize the device. The reason behind this could be that unlike most smartphone makers HTC has been able to keep things tightly under the wraps or probably people aren’t too interested in yet another device from HTC that is looking to benefit from a viral trend and might not be widely available.
The last few phones from HTC proceed to be focused on a niche segment and lacked the oomph that would force the users to notice them.
In any case, the HTC metaverse phone was expected to launch way sooner, however, the ongoing supply chain issues dented the company’s plans and hence the considerable delay in the launch.
While this might not be a totally unique proposition, we’ve seen a lot of smartphone makers introducing phone-powered VR headsets when it was considered cool. However, they turned out to be a gimmick more than anything else.
Has to be much more than just metaverse
In case HTC really wants to pull off something here, the phone might come with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SoC coupled with at least 8GB of RAM and 256 GB of internal storage. While these are specifications that you can find on any upper-midrange device off the shelf, however, these should be the ideal specifications of a device that looks to pull off something that has not been heard about until now.
The phone is expected to get a limited release and will most probably be available only in a handful of markets – excluding India, of course.
The phone has to be able to do much more than just being able to run a few metaverse applications and case them on the compatible headset. Hence, HTC needs to do something that will make users believe in the metaverse and then should feel the need to buy the phone (and its accessories, if any).
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