HTC is reportedly considering launching its Viveport subscription service on other virtual reality (VR) platforms beyond the HTC Vive, according to a recent report from Variety citing Viveport President Rikard Steiber. According to the source, HTC is looking into ways of bringing Viveport to other VR headsets including the Oculus Rift and possibly even the Google Daydream platform.
HTC’s Viveport subscription service was announced earlier this year at Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2017 as a storefront for HTC Vive VR titles. The service went live in early April along with over 50 titles for HTC Vive owners willing to pay a monthly fee of $6.99 and was updated with 75 new games earlier this week, pushing the Viveport game library to over 150 VR titles. As for what customers receive for the monthly fee, the subscription service allows users to pick five VR titles from the Viveport library every month, which are then available free of charge throughout the subscription’s duration or until the user decides to swap out and reserve other titles at the end of each month. At the moment, HTC Viveport is only available for the HTC Vive headset and this is the first indication that the Taiwanese company is planning to expand its availability. Both the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift fit in the high-end VR market and are arguably the most powerful VR headsets currently available for purchase.
Apart from considering launching Viveport on other platforms beyond the Oculus Rift, HTC will reportedly provide help for developers creating cross-platform titles. With that in mind, the benefits of having access to HTC Viveport – and thus a richer content library – are rather obvious for Oculus Rift owners, though the service’s expansion into other platforms could also benefit HTC Vive owners as it may bring more developers to HTC’s VR ecosystem. No further details on the matter have been revealed as of this writing, so only time will tell if and when HTC Viveport will extend its reaches beyond the HTC Vive headset. At the moment, the consumer electronics company doesn’t seem to have set any details in stone, but more information on its VR ambitions may follow in the coming months.