Viveport, HTC’s pioneering VR app store and subscription service platform, announced a strategic partnership with BANDAI NAMCO Pictures (BN Pictures), the leading animation studio and production company. The alliance aims to give BN Pictures’ well-known animated content a new angle in the field of virtual reality (VR).
The company aims to bring out the new services in the next few months, making them available on Viveport. It will give users such as hardcore players to casual ones a completely new experience with immersive animations and virtual social interactions.
BN Pictures are known for producing original animation series that hold a robust merchandising potential, such as the ‘Battle Spirits’ series, the ‘Aikatsu!’ series, and the ‘Tiger & Bunny’ series. The company has also successfully created animations based on hit comic titles such as the ‘Gintama’ series and ‘Sergeant Keroro’ series.
Viveport and BN Pictures are very well mutually working to create and evolve the VR ecosystem to give access to a wide range of virtual experiences for consumers.
VR has now completely changed people’s minds toward design, marketing, training, education, socializing, and entertainment. Viveport forms an essential part of HTC’s position as a global pioneer in VR.
Such integration provides a well-rounded content platform for a wide variety of VR experiences. It continually seeks new opportunities to serve up the best, immersive experience in the fields of games, events, entertainment, exploration, education, and more.
This partnership with BN Pictures facilitates HTC to grow its intellectual property (IP) portfolio. On the other hand, for BN Pictures, this partnership vastly broadens access to its content for users worldwide.
“The future of virtual reality is about delivering experiences and exploring infinite possibilities to be realized,” said Joseph Lin, President of Viveport. “We are honored to become BN Pictures’ first VR partner. Through this collaboration, we can bring animation content to a higher level and push the frontiers to unlock the full potential of virtual reality. In the next few months, anime content will be available on Viveport and more virtual experiences will be delivered to our audience. Please stay tuned – more exciting things are on the way!”
Masayuki Ozaki, President and CEO of BANDAI NAMCO Pictures, said, “We at BANDAI NAMCO Pictures are an animation production company that has produced and owned numerous TV series, OVAs, Web animations, and theatrical films, and in particular, we continue to actively produce original works. By combining the original animation planning and production know-how that we have cultivated over the years with HTC’s advanced technological capabilities and strength as a communications platform, we will be able to create an environment where fans can enjoy experiences together, transcending physical limitations, as if they were diving directly into the world of our creations from anywhere in the world. We are very much looking forward to evolving this newly born space together with our fans.”
Initially, this partnership aims to integrate animation content, development, and distribution resources from both companies. It also aims to bring together ongoing collaborations on new animation and IP development, as well as robust exploration of new business opportunities.
Through the partnership with BN Pictures, Viveport will continue to enrich and diversify the content for mobile and social VR platforms – creating unique and fun virtual entertainment.
