Might Still be too Niche
The next generation of consoles are looking like straight killers. With VR also being one of the hottest new toys right now, it’s a bit surprising to find out that Xbox Series X doesn’t have any current plans of adopting the VR. With Playstation 5 supporting PSVR, what’s Microsoft’s reason behind not adopting the VR?
Schell Games was recently interviewed by Gaming Bolt on their thoughts on the matter. As developers working in VR accessibility, they have had plenty of run-ins with devs from the new-gen consoles. Their VP of design, Harley Baldwin, has few pretty insightful guesses on why Xbox Series X isn’t jumping in on the bandwagon. She thinks that perhaps VR market is still too narrow for Xbox’s scope, but ensures that Microsoft is looking into adopting VR when the time is ready.
Baldwin said, “I think we’ve already seen some movement from them. It’s non-committal now, but it’s not where they started. They started by saying there wouldn’t be support. I think they’re looking at the same data everyone else is looking at, and that data says that tethered headsets are niche, and you don’t get wider platform adoption until you’ve got a quality standalone headset. Xbox is a platform that deals in scale, and blockbusters, and it’s not an easy thing to figure out how to make a niche product work for their market.
“That being said, I think they’ll get there. I’m old enough to remember the launch of the original Xbox. It wasn’t first to market, but it was a solid offering that allowed people to have a dedicated gaming rig in the living room and it was super easy to develop for because we devs were mostly using similar desktops. They’ve done this kind of technology transition before, and they’ll do ok. When they do show up again, we’ll be ready.”
What are your thoughts about Xbox Series X not having VR? I feel like there must be plenty of people planning to buy PS5 just for the sheer fact that it possesses VR support.
Source: Gamingbolt