StarVR Corp (宏星技術), a 63.25 percent-owned subsidiary of Acer Inc (宏碁), has decided to temporarily suspend its StarVR developer program while it transforms from a publicly traded company to a private entity.
StarVR, Acer’s joint venture with Swedish gaming hardware and software developer Starbreeze AB, stopped trading its shares on the Taipei Exchange’s Emerging Stock Board on Nov. 30, because the company is adjusting its business strategy following a decline in virtual reality (VR) sales this year.
“We regret to inform you that the StarVR Developer Program has been put on hold until further notice,” Taipei-based StarVR said in an open letter to its developers and partners on Saturday last week.
“We believe it is the most responsible course of action to put the StarVR Developer Program on hold while our company is in the process of going private, which may entail some changes to our operations,” it said.
In a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange on Saturday, StarVR said the developer program is also being halted because Starbreeze, which holds a 36.75 percent stake in the company, has filed for reconstruction with the Stockholm District Court.
The development comes after StarVR last month announced the launch of its developer program, allowing a select group of developers and professional users to get their hands on its latest VR headset, the StarVR One, which was unveiled in late August.
As demand for VR devices remains weaker than expected, StarVR reported revenue of NT$1.11 million (US$35,991) last month, declining 35.09 percent month-on-month and down 91.46 percent year-on-year, according to its regulatory filing.
Cumulative revenue in the first 11 months of the year decreased 90.09 percent from a year earlier to NT$12.83 million, the filing showed.
Separately, Acer on Saturday said its consolidated revenue for last month reached NT$22.17 billion, up 11.1 percent from NT$19.96 billion in the previous month, but down 6.1 percent from NT$23.61 billion a year earlier.
For the first 11 months, revenue totaled NT$220.74 billion and grew 2.05 percent year-on-year, it said.
Acer said last month’s sales were affected by the shortage of Intel Corp’s central processing units (CPUs) for PCs.
However, products such as digital displays and subsidiaries AOpen Inc (建碁), Weblink International Inc (展碁) and Acer Cyber Security Inc (安碁), which were unaffected by the CPU shortage, continued to show growth, the company said.
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