Today at CES, HTC announced that it’s going to be adding a Netflix-like subscription service to its Viveport store, allowing VR users to download hosts of apps as part of a larger monthly subscription service.
Details were scant on pricing and available titles, but the company detailed that part of the benefits of the service lie in discovery and ensuring that up-and-coming developers had an avenue to get their work discovered by users.
Viveport skews mostly toward non-gaming VR app experiences, though you’ll still find plenty of VR gaming titles in the store. HTC Viveport President Rikard Steiber noted that with more than 1,000 VR titles now available and more than 3,000 titles expected by the end of 2017, having a subscription model like this makes sense.
Content creators opt-in to the service or can continue to sell their titles in a standalone capacity.
“We’re happy to let VR fans know that the same way they discover and consume content through popular subscription services for music, films, TV and games is coming to virtual reality,” said Steiber. “For developers, this is yet another opportunity for them to reach broader audiences — we want to give VR developers as many ways as possible to monetize and feature their content, and this is yet another channel for them to reach new customers on Viveport.”
The company also announced that it will be opening its Viveport mobile platform in China to international developers and will soon be launching focused enterprise and arcade initiatives globally for Viveport.