Dude, Asia's Biggest Tech Show Will Be Virtually Unreal

Asia’s biggest annual tech show normally brings together boards, cards and widgets that make up our PCs. But that lineup is too earthly for the latest IT trend virtual reality. So the Computex Taipei event that opens May 31 will feature PCs that work with virtual reality head and hand gear to turn your bedroom into the ocean floor or a war zone. Expect to see more than 30 brands of game-ready hardware, a lot from Big Taiwanese names such as HTC and Acer . Some will allow trials of hardware that can help rocket you into space or put you face to face with thugs charging across the desert.

“This year, Computex will focus on gaming for the first time,” says Ian Wang, analyst with the Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute in Taipei. “Combining desktop gaming PC and VR is going to be vendors’ next selling point.”

Virtual reality is not an official Computex theme as ordained by the sponsor Taiwan External Trade Development Council. A lot of the show’s 1,600 exhibitors and anticipated 130,000 visitors will share parts and systems related to last year’s theme, the Internet of Things, or the organizer’s new 2016 emphasis on startups, a media handler with the trade council said.

But virtual reality is getting more real, whether at the 36th annual Computex show or anyplace else a bunch of tech firms gather. Virtual reality is forecast to be worth $15.89 billion by 2020 after sudden quick growth last year. Today just eight major headgear system developers lead the field. They will fight for an edge by showing off wherever possible.

Computex is still a hardware event, so gamer developers probably won’t rent out showroom stalls. But hardware heavyweights that build made-for-game machines will do their best to dazzle visitors. The old-school PC makers that have long fretted about losing market share to smartphones will have new cause to step into a show spotlight.

Taiwanese PC giant Acer, for example, is expected to show its new Predator-brand series of computers, including a notebook and a desktop made for virtual reality games. Both models meet graphics processing unit-maker Nvidia’s “VR Ready” standard, Wang says. The PCs would work with virtual reality systems such as the HTC Vive and Facebook -owned Oculus Rift systems. Taiwan’s Asustek Computer, Gigabyte and MSI will probably roll out their own made-for-VR systems at the show. HTC, a Taiwanese firm that is struggling to make money from its mainstay smartphones, says it will offer Vive trials to Computex visitors.

“Virtual Reality wasn’t mentioned much last year, but this year it seems almost obligatory for every trade show to have a focus on that topic,” says Bryan Ma, devices analysis vice president with tech market research firm IDC in Singapore. “I’d be interested to see how much it’s discussed at Computex this year, especially in the context of Taiwan’s PC-heavy ecosystem.”