HTC's Viveport Subscription, which offers access to five VR apps in exchange for a monthly fee, now boasts more than 200 titles.
The Viveport Subscription costs $7 per month after a one-month free trial. You get to pick which VR apps you want to use each month--you can keep the same five titles, for example, or you could use the service to demo software you aren't sure you want to buy. Given the cost of some VR apps, which can easily run upwards of $40, that $7 per month seems like a good way to avoid buyer's remorse while you experiment with VR.
Just look at some of the most popular apps used via the Viveport Subscription. HTC shared lists of the top ten apps and games, and the top item on each list costs $30 and $20, respectively. If you had to gamble on five apps you might not like, would you rather do so with $7 or $125 per month? We'd go for the former, even if we planned to purchase an app after what amounts to a month-long demo has ended. It's the safer bet.
HTC said the number of VR experiences available via the Viveport Subscription has grown 30% every month since the service debuted in April. The service's number of users has risen, too, with a 50% increase from month to month. The latter percentage increase doesn't mean much--for all we know, the number of users could've jumped from 100 people to 150--but it does show that HTC Vive owners are interested in the service.
Much of that could be attributed to the rise of subscription-based services. Netflix is the go-to example, and Microsoft is trying to make "Netflix for games" happen again with the Xbox Game Pass, which debuted in June. Heck, there are subscription services for prepared meals and razor blades. Expanding this monthly payment setup to VR makes sense, especially when you consider the fact that the VR industry is still young.
You can find more information about the Viveport Subscription in HTC's blog post about crossing the 200-title mark.
