HTC have announced VIVE Studios, a new initiative that will see them developing and publishing games for the HTC Vive VR headset internally. According to the company, the ijntent is to basically have a first party publishing and developing model like what consoles have.
“Vive Studios is actively creating content across key categories for VR including games, education, cinematic, design, social, real-estate and sports, as well as tools and applications that can revolutionize areas such as media, retail, healthcare and location-based entertainment centres and arcades,” HTC said.
The program will be not dissimilar to the one that Oculus has- but HTC seems to be adamant that they will not be paying for exclusive content like Oculus does, a move that has alienated a lot of customers and VR enthusiasts.
“Each piece of content will be released where it makes the most sense,” HTC said in response to that query, adding that they believe “content should be open and go wherever consumers want to access it.”
Hopefully, they hold true to that. The HTC Vive is available to purchase in the market right now. Though the most expensive VR solution, it is also undoubtedly the most capable one, and arguably more than justifies the cost.