Rikard Steiber, Viveport President and Senior VP of Virtual Reality, is departing HTC at the end of the year.

Having joined the company in February 2016, Steiber oversaw the launch of Viveport in over 60 markets, HTC’s digital distribution platform for VR games and experiences.

As first reported by Forbes, Bjorn Book-Larsson, HTC’s VP of Product, will now be acting President of Viveport, making for a notable shift in leadership since Yves Maitre replaced Cher Wang as CEO in September.

Steiber told Forbes this about his departure:

“Viveport Infinity is having incredible positive momentum with new top rated content, great product and new subscriber records daily. However, as HTC now is entering a new chapter, I have agreed with Yves (new HTC CEO) that it is a great time for me to move on and take on a new challenge after almost 4 years at HTC Vive. I will go on garden leave today until my contract ends early next year.”

Opening its Viveport Infinity in April 2019, HTC was the first to offer a Netflix-style subscription model for VR content, which lets users download any of the platform’s participating PC VR games and experiences, which at the time of this writing is over 700.

Viveport notably supports all major PC VR headsets, including Vive, Vive Pro, Vive Cosmos, Oculus Rift & Rift S, Valve Index, and Windows VR headsets.

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Steiber arrived at HTC from his position as CEO of MTGx, a digital entertainment company based in Stockholm. Steiber came to MTGx after a six-year stint at Google where he held the positions of Global Marketing Director and Director of Product Marketing.

Steiber hasn’t mentioned any future plans yet, however Forbes notes that an official statement should arrive at some point soon, which hopefully will give us some insight into where he’s headed next, be it somewhere in the VR industry or otherwise.

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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.
  • Pizzy

    What is Viveport?? Lol

    • JesuSaveSouls

      It’s the newest real life teleport technology.

      • aasdfa

        haha it will teleport you’re money out of your wallet faster then anything else!

        • Seems odd that this got so little marketing, at least I’ve not seen it anywhere till now.
          Looks like a great bargain with many VR titles costing like 10+ each while being quite experimental.

          I’m definitely going to give it a spin, hopefully it’ll actually slow down money teleportation ;)

  • JesuSaveSouls

    Leaving sinking ships.I got respect for vive.They competed with oculus and that brought out psvr.They can get ahead again of the competition with lower prices hardware or much more advanced specs.

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    • care package

      Not sure about that. PSVR was probably 5 years in the planning/development.