HTC is committed to the larger XR, AR, and VR ecosystem for Vive

Virtual reality has a bright future, but for the present the consumer VR market is puttering along. Rikard Steiber, senior vice president of VR at HTC and president of the Viveport store, is one of the true believers.He said in a recent talk at the XRDC event that the company continues to invest in the VR ecosystem, from an investment in developer awards to the evolution of the platform to accommodate future hardware improvements. Steiber believes that subscriptions to content in the Viveport store will help developers monetize and encourage the growth of the consumer VR market.His company also continues to be generous in sharing app store proceeds with developers, and it sees growth in VR happening. Today, the company released a premium update for its Ready Player One: Oasis VR experience.But HTC faces some stiff competition from Facebook’s Oculus VR division, which is launching the wireless Oculus Quest stand-alone VR headset in the spring of 2019. HTC has to be prepared to improve its platform and provide six-degrees-of-freedom hand controllers with a standalone headset or risk losing its VR fans to Oculus.