Oculus and HTC have already reduced the prices of their respective headsets, with the Oculus Rift now selling for $500 and HTC Vive for $600. While graphically-capable PCs are cheaper than ever thanks to new GPUs and software optimizations, you still need to pony up the cash for a min-spec system ($699 for an OEM-built machine). HTC hopes to address this in China with a new partnership between Dalian Television and Beijing Cyber Cloud to offer a set-top, cloud-based box—meaning you don’t need a traditional VR-ready rig to run VR games.

According to a report by Engadget, HTC will be trialing the new project in Dalian, China where it will offer access to games hosted on a digital marketplace separate from Viveport. While it only hosts “a few dozen” games, apps and a library of 360 videos at the moment, HTC says more content will be added over time, of course sourced from Viveport.

The service, which also includes is a 60 Mbps broadband connection, is positioning itself as a consumer streaming solution not unlike Spotify. Unlike Spotify however, HTC is also renting out the Vive alongside the set-top box, making for an all-in-one deal that gives newcomers everything they need to start experiencing virtual reality.

image courtesy Engadget

The set-top box and Vive bundle is reported to cost a one-time, refundable deposit of ¥3,000 yuan (~$455) including a monthly fee of around ¥500 yuan (~$76). Because the deposit is refundable in full, this essentially lets Dalian-based residents test out the headset at home before putting down the big bucks. The company also offers the choice to outright purchase a Vive with a one-year subscription to the service for ¥6,688 yuan (~$1,015). Considering the Vive’s unusually-high price in China, costing around $200 more than most other regional markets, the savings are apparent for customers still unsure about VR.

HTC Vive China Regional President Alvin Wang Graylin admits however some latency is to be expected, saying it would be “ok for most non-twitch apps.” There’s no word if the service can provide what’s largely considered the minimum acceptable latency at 20ms motion-to-photon.

This comes as a part of a larger trend by HTC to make Vive usership less financially daunting. The company already offers a game subscription service via Viveport that includes a collection of hundreds of games at $7 per month, and also maintains a similar subscription program (including headset) for location-based entertainment facilities like arcades or theme parks. Called Vive Arcace, this was also a ‘China-first’ program that latter went global.

One thing is for certain though: the success of a streaming service like this highly depends on a fast, near latency-free connection—something countries (including the US) have to address before taking the digital plunge.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • Firestorm185

    Wow, streaming VR with no pc involved, that’s a pretty amazing deal! Especially for events, I could see that being huge for renting at big conventions, you just come in and set up a router and plug everything in and BAM. instant VR connection. As long as the streaming service doesn’t horribly compress or add latency, I’d be all in, especially if it was combined with TPCast! >w<

    • Duane Locsin

      amazing deal maybe to casual people who don’t consider themselves gamers, but like you mentioned it depends on the network conditions (which is a huge factor) but there are other caveats also.

      -you will NOT own a physical product (a set top box is dead weight without the service) or local storage copy of the software (even if you do -which defeats the purpose of streaming there is an authentication process and DRM somewhere)

      -“gaming as a service” as gaming veterans know, this is beholden to what the devs/publishers do- server outage/maintenance, old software no longer supported.

      -though it may seem you save by not getting the upfront high cost hardware, you are essentially running everything off your Internet and there are continues charges by both your contract with your ISP and subscription service every month.
      When that is tallied in only 12 months it really adds up.
      If you decide to cancel your “gaming as a service” you really don’t have anything in your hands afterwards.

      -PC gaming manufacturers that make VR capable machines will have little choice by charging more somewhere to make up for slumping demand on hardware.

      The only real winners really are publishers/devs and the ISP.

  • David Wilhelm

    Presumably this works by keeping asynchronous updates local, so the headset can update rotation while data comes in simultaneously. Neat idea, but anything that adds latency is questionable.

  • Andrew Jakobs

    You’re better off just buying a PC with headset in installments, it’s cheaper after a year or so and you can do more with the PC than with the settopbox.

    • NooYawker

      Well only if you buy it outright. But at $76 a year it seems very reasonable. Sounds like if you cancel you get your $450 deposit back.

      • Andrew Jakobs

        If it was $76 a year I would agree with you, but it’s $76 a MONTH!

        • NooYawker

          OH!! my bad, yea that’s crazy. Definitely not worth it.

          • Duane Locsin

            Subscriptions and “software as a service” is meant to be a way for publishers/developers to continually charge you directly after paying upfront costs.
            Because traditionally you pay for a software upfront and that is more or less generally the end of the transaction.

            It makes sense on the software side for devs/publishers especially if they remove or lower the hardware entry barrier, but it has the following consequences.

            -you don’t need such powerful hardware anymore, so more people would opt for it, and those used to paying off hardware on 24 month contracts I.e. Smart phones (though arguably you end up paying more with a stuck contract then buying the hardware out right) will see that as a great deal.

            -since there is less demand/need for powerful consumer hardware just a fast stable internet (depends on where you live) hardware manufacturers like Dell, HP, Asus, Razer will struggle even more to sell gaming pcs.

            -ISPs will of course have a field day, why bother having a physical collection of games or local storage when you can simply stream them like many do with movies, music and some cases software (Office 365, Citrix)

            What’s even worse is they could make the ‘set top boxes’ “free” and the games F2P/P4F/FREEMIUM because many people have no idea how much the costs tally up.

  • Nikolai Torp Dragnes

    So how about doing this over a cellular 5G network?

    • Duane Locsin

      Depends on where you live.
      I figure networks in Asia, particular places like Korea it would exel (and maybe not since fixed lines are much faster and with big data plans to go with it)

      But in some other countries with rural areas and service providers notorious for ripping off mobile users with poor mobile data plans, I don’t know.

      Besides the options and feasibility of “gaming as a service” off 5G networks, nothing can beat powerful hardware that you have with you.(if you can afford initial high costs)
      -not held up by network outages
      -server maintenance and end of life for online dependent games
      -gaming subscriptions?
      What is that exactly? All it is, is they charge you for the privilege of using their servers (not all games have dedicated servers), cloud backups/syncs on top off the games you already bought.

      Sorry for my rant, things like “gaming as a service” and IAP really irks gamers like me.
      :)

  • Lucidfeuer

    I don’t see why fiber-cable with no-stop passthrough data would even add any latency.
    I hope to soon be able to taste a local (city-scale) fiber-optic cable streaming and beaming from home computer to office WifiAD router to headset.

  • SandmaN

    DOA.

  • Kenny Thompson

    My stomach is getting upset just thinking about the lag. Doesn’t Oculus say <20ms eye to photon? And that's with a PC at your feet. But I am sure everyone has a 1ms ping right!?!

  • Duane Locsin

    Not for me;

    I don’t like being beholden and dependent on “gaming as a service” and running everything off the cloud and subscribing traditional standalone software.

    -it is always at the risk of network outages
    -developer/publisher no longer supporting the community
    -you will never actually own a physical thing and get to run it again a few years later
    -in many ways it is suppose to cost you more, because a service is meant to ring more money out of you over a period of time then a pay up front generally once off product.

    I think it also targeting the wrong market as most gamers in particular PC owners put significant emphasis on hardware and collection of games.

    It would be better suited for mobile (which I am also opposed to, as it is already dominated by the F2P/P4F/FREEMIUM charging model which is even worse)