HTC quietly discontinues Vive Cosmos in the US

The discrepancy was first spotted by Reddit user "Kody1996," who wondered why the Vive Cosmos product page disappeared.

As of now, HTC is still able to directly supply new devices in some markets such as Europe, Australia, Taiwan, and Japan.

The Vive Cosmos has always been somewhat unusual. A little over a year after the Vive Pro hit the market, Cosmos is being positioned as the company's first consumer-facing VR headset since the original HTC Vive. In 2019, Cosmos was a shining star with integrated audio, a competitive display, and a poor built-in optical tracking system.

At launch in 2019, the $700 Cosmos was squeezed between two main competitors: the low-end Oculus Rift S for $400, and the high-end Valve Index bundle (including controllers and base station) for $1,000. It had to perform better than the Rift S in order to be competitive in the mid-range segment, but it actually performed so poorly at launch that we delayed reviewing it because we thought we had received a faulty unit . In fact, the headset's built-in optical tracking system is pretty unreliable in anything but perfect lighting conditions.

While subsequent updates have improved these tracking issues somewhat, the only way to get "perfect" tracking from the headset is to ditch its detachable faceplate and generic controllers in favor of the Cosmos Elite's rugged SteamVR Tracking panel. When the Cosmos Elite launches in 2020, the complete bundle will cost $900, $100 less than the Index, which is still widely considered the winner of the best all-around PC VR headset.

Despite dropping the price of the full Cosmos Elite bundle from $900 to $750 in the US and offering a headset-only option for just $550, HTC's detachable headset still hasn't been able to compete with Oculus or Valve , making only minor headway on the Steam platform during its first year of launch.