For nearly a year now, HTC's SteamVR-based Vive headset has remained stubbornly set at its launch price of $800. That will change for a single day on Wednesday, when HTC has announced it will lower the Vive's price to $700 in celebration of the headset's first anniversary (down from £689 to £589 in the UK).

The one-day sale comes a month after Oculus permanently lowered the price of its Rift headset from $600 to $500. While the pricier Vive package comes with a pair of hand-tracking controllers, Oculus also lowered the price of its own Touch controllers from $200 to $100 last month, making the Rift package significantly cheaper in an apples-to-apples basis.

Alongside the brief price drop, HTC will also be rolling out a new subscription-based software program on April 5. For $7/£7 a month, a Viveport subscription will let players "choose five titles from an ever-growing library of curated content," on HTC's Viveport platform (which is distinct from the SteamVR interface many Vive owners use). Viveport users can try a free one-month trial of the service and choose from among 50 different titles to start.

HTC will also be offering a free copy of Arcade Saga to Viveport users on Wednesday. The game—one of the first by HTC's own internal studios—offers pinball, table tennis, and archery games. It will retail for $20 after the one-day sale.

All in all, this is a nice set of promotions to celebrate the first year of consumer virtual reality. It's a bit odd that the hardware price drop can't last for more than a single day, though. Perhaps HTC is using the temporary sale as a trial balloon to see how price-sensitive the virtual reality marketplace really is going forward. After all, HTC will be facing its own SteamVR-based competition from LG in the near future, which might help force prices down whether HTC is ready or not.