ASUS has been fairly successful in its attempts to become less reliant on its PC business with its recent smartphones, but it doesn’t want its diversification efforts to be limited to just the mobile market. We already know that the company is working with Microsoft to create its own version of the HoloLens augmented reality headset, but a recent rumor out of Taiwan claims ASUS is also working on its own virtual reality headset, which should launch sometime in the first half of next year. The same source of that rumor claims that Gigabyte is working on its own headset as well.
We’ve already reported that Asus says it’s getting into the augmented reality business next year. The revelation was made by both chairman Jonney Shih and CEO Jerry Shen over the last few months. During an earnings webcast, Shen confirmed that a product would be released in 2016. As reported in October, Shih hinted that Asus was working with Microsoft to create a cheaper version of HoloLens, similar in nature to how Samsung worked with Oculus VR to release Gear VR last month. Shih said that augmented reality headsets would be more useful to the general consumer than virtual reality devices. However, according to sources in the Taiwan-based supply chain, Asus is shooting to release a virtual reality headset in the first half of 2016 that will plug into Asus gaming notebooks with high-end GPUs. Sources claim that because notebook sales are down, Asus is looking at new ways to bring in revenue, one of which is virtual reality.
