To commemorate the first anniversary of its first virtual reality headset called Vive, HTC has announced that it’s now going to offer a $7 subscription option for Viveport, the virtual reality content distribution platform that it launched in September last year. A Viveport subscription will enable Vive owners to access a world of virtual reality content including experiences and games without having to pay for such content individually.
The HTC Vive has proven to be quite popular with the VR enthusiast community even though there are still significant costs involved in getting a VR system up and running. You need to have a compatible PC that has enough power to drive the headset. The HTC Vive itself costs $800 so you can see how it’s not something that the average user would spend money on.
HTC’s Viveport platform is a one-stop destination for apps, games, and experiences with more than 1,600 titles available currently. Rikard Steiber, the president of Viveport at HTC, said that “Introducing a subscription model to VR is a natural evolution of where this market is going, and as film, music, and TV have proven it’s becoming the preferred way customers want to explore and experience entertainment content.”
HTC Viveport subscription service will go live on April 5th and provides access to five games of the subscriber’s choice per month. It’s up to the subscribers if they want to retain the same games every month or return one of them and select a new one from the collection.
Currently, there are more than 50 games available in the collection for Viveport subscribers and HTC says that it will continue to grow rapidly. All games, even though that are included in the subscription, will be available for individual purchase as well.
Filed in . Read more about HTC, HTC Vive, Virtual Reality (VR) and Viveport.