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Microsoft is discussing VR and might launch VR hardware with Xbox Games Studios

Snake29

RSI Employee of the Year
The Series X does not have the bandwith for these newer VR headsets. While the PS5 has WiFi 6 and USB ports (Even USB C) with 10Gbit bandwith. The Series X has 5Gbit USB ports and no USBC and Wifi 5.
 
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ShaiKhulud1989

Gold Member
The Series X does not have the bandwith for these newer VR headsets. While the PS5 has WiFi 6 and USB ports (Even USB C) with 10Gbit bandwith. The Series X has 5Gbit USB ports and no USBC and Wifi 5.
Always thought that XSX has full speed 10g USB-C.

That's actually seals the deal lol.
 

baphomet

Member
Doom VR was not made by one person. Just that before he left he has a team with him that helped him work on it, or I have this impression at least. Bethesda was taken by Microsoft not long ago after. I hope that they took the initiative of letting them work on the subject. A few people can do a lot in emergent market like that one. I know that the chances are small.

No, he didn't. Doom VR also wasn't an early VR title. Nor did Doom 3 actually release with a VR mode. The Doom 3 VR mode he literally said was his "hobby project."

There are plenty of court findings when Bethesda attempted to sue Oculus saying that because John Carmack worked at Bethesda at the time he was doing his one man VR stuff, they owned Oculus.
 
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MarkMe2525

Member
Just let me plug in my og oculus quest and call it a day. I dont need another $500-$600
headset that I'll only use for a couple of weeks at a time.
 

Daneel Elijah

Gold Member
No, he didn't. Doom VR also wasn't an early VR title. Nor did Doom 3 actually release with a VR mode.

There are plenty of court findings when Bethesda attempted to sue Oculus saying that because John Carmack worked at Bethesda at the time he was doing his one man VR stuff, they owned Oculus.
Bethesda won and go a huge sum from facebook in the end, so they didn't attempted to sue, they did. Sorry if I wasn't factual about what Carmack did. Just that Bethesda did have a certain advantage in VR at some point. They could have continued working on it.
 

MarkMe2525

Member
The Series X does not have the bandwith for these newer VR headsets. While the PS5 has WiFi 6 and USB ports (Even USB C) with 10Gbit bandwith. The Series X has 5Gbit USB ports and no USBC and Wifi 5.
While preferred, you do not need wifi 6 nor 10Gbit USB. People have been using slower USB and wifi 5 for years now.
 

baphomet

Member
Bethesda won and go a huge sum from facebook in the end, so they didn't attempted to sue, they did. Sorry if I wasn't factual about what Carmack did. Just that Bethesda did have a certain advantage in VR at some point. They could have continued working on it.

Bethesda never had any sort of advantage in VR. Carmack did. The entire case was because Carmack used his own tools he developed when he left.

Bethesda were always 100% anti VR.
"When it became clear that I wasn't going to have the opportunity to do any work on VR while at id software, I decided to not renew my contract."
 

Daneel Elijah

Gold Member
Bethesda never had any sort of advantage in VR. Carmack did. The entire case was because Carmack used his own tools he developed when he left.

Bethesda were always 100% anti VR.
"When it became clear that I wasn't going to have the opportunity to do any work on VR while at id software, I decided to not renew my contract."
Shame.
 

Marvel14

Banned
Makes no sense. First deliver a steady stream of.high quality 1st party games...then launch a new medium for more games...or get out of the software game entirely and just do hardware and networks...
 
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Killer8

Member
They're barely releasing flatscreen games as it is, let alone splitting the studios up further to make VR content.
 

DaGwaphics

Member
It's not the matter of MS allowing it, it's the matter of VR headset manufacturers allowing it.
Hardware is sold at a loss or small profit, and they would get nothing from people buying games for the headset on Xbox store. MS would get its cut, the publisher would get its cut, the manufacturer would get zilch.

That's basically the reality for any PC compatible headset though. They really aren't locked to a particular store.

The only headsets that really benefit from a locked store is PS and something like Oculus Go where the company store is the only option.
 
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fart town usa

Gold Member
The only people who want VR to die are those without access to it.

Real Housewives Of Atlanta Nene GIF by Bravo TV
They are haters in the purest sense of the word. Shame really cause VR is great and is 100% doing it's own thing. Nothing about VR is disrupting/dismantling traditional gaming. The hate it receives makes zero sense.
 

mrmustard

Banned
I'm sure an increase in price for most subscribers of Gamepass who don't have VR would disagree with your assessment. If someone is willing to pay for higher end accessories like VR, why would MS harm themselves with not maximising VR software sales.

Also if they untether VR games from the Series S then maybe they have a shot at working with VR. Otherwise why buy VR games on MS with a Series S quality as they could just buy the same quality on their own wireless headset?
They could make it Ultimate only or add a new Tier called Ultimate VR for like 2 bucks more or make a new VR only sub. Make games like Grounded, Flight Sim, Forza and so on compatible and buy some cheap ass VR shovelware. There should be enough on the market.

And Series S is much too weak for VR, they should make this X only.

But after all i oubt MS is doing anything with VR. It would have been a monster hit on PS maybe, but right now i don't see it.
 

TheDreadLord

Gold Member
They should just add support to existing VR headsets. Flight Simulator is probably awesome in VR.

People saying that Series S isn’t powerful enough forget that XCloud is a thing on Xbox.
 
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Three

Member
People saying that Series S isn’t powerful enough forget that XCloud is a thing on Xbox.
The email mentions cloud but I've yet to see any VR market player attempt cloud VR. A bad connection might be barf inducing and it would be interesting to see how it would be approached.
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Can't they just allow an existing VR headset like the Oculus Rift work on the Xbox or something instead? That being said I would like to see a VR headset for the Xbox though. Would be great for games like Forza.
Makes sense to me.

But console makers like to hoard it all with their own peripherals they can control and max out profits.
 

poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
Because yor PC is using dedicated hardware to compress special data feed which is basically a realtime video stream of your current screen. That will be a no-go for consoles and even on PC, with CPU-heavy games output quality via Oculus Link (both wired and wireless) usually degrades.

On consoles you need to have all avaliable resouces for VR to work properly. That's why PSVR 2, for example, is wired and carries direct display oputput without resorting to video encoding via the data stream. Also part of the reason why PSVR 2 wire is so thin and light.
Don't consoles already allow streaming to twitch and the like, the compression is generally done on the GPU with dedicated hardware.
 

THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
While I personally would enjoy this it's a terrible idea vs a handheld hybrid that runs off the series S profile. No reason at all to put thier time and energy into this considering the small user base and vr adoption rates.
 

EverydayBeast

thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
Microsoft lost people with Kinect, once upon a time Microsoft was exclusive city once they went against ps4 it was all over.
 

ShaiKhulud1989

Gold Member
Don't consoles already allow streaming to twitch and the like, the compression is generally done on the GPU with dedicated hardware.
Video compression speed and quality required for VR over data-only USB-C is a far cry from crappy Twitch 8mbps h264 stream. And even Quest is not perfect with heavy games like Alyx on a powerful PC if you notch hz or speed a little.

Also XS USB output is limited to 5gb only so this is out of the question anyway.
 

ZoukGalaxy

Member
They lol'ed VR, mocked Sony indirectly and now they seem to show interest to it ? What a joke, or more a shitshow.
Microsoft is really a opportunist company today with no clear leading. Concentrate on making games first that sell the hardware.

I can't thanks enough Sony for daring PSVR 1 & 2 and help the market to actually grow, even as a niche, but evolve it with better hardware. Microsoft can like my ass forever with their Kinect and for snubing VR.
 
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splattered

Member
They lol'ed VR, mocked Sony indirectly and now they seem to show interest to it ? What a joke, or more a shitshow.
Microsoft is really a opportunist company today with no clear leading. Concentrate on making games first that sell the hardware.

I can't thanks enough Sony for daring PSVR 1 & 2 and help the market to actually grow, even as a niche, but evolve it with better hardware. Microsoft can like my ass forever with their Kinect and for snubing VR.

No they didn't. Quit making shit up.
 
If they must have VR then partner with Meta or Valve to use their hardware, and just have a VR store page. MS wading into this space with their own hardware would be a boondoggle.
 
They can't even manage a regular output of non-VR games, despite all their acquisitions. VR would just be a further distraction, just like what's happening with Sony.
 

Reallink

Member
I would think MS would be far more interested in heading off Facebook's impending "VR Gamepass" subscription than competing with PSVR2, which not even Sony themselves gives a flying fuck about. As VR development is 99% dominated by 1 - 5 man amateur indie studios releasing their first games, it would be dirt cheap for someone to bundle into a subscription service. Nearly bankrupt HTC has been doing it for years on a shoestring budget, but they don't have the resources or know how to properly market it or acquire the bigger games people actually want. Virtually no one even knows it exists.
 
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supernova8

Banned
I could be totally crazy but perhaps Xbox should just focus all of its resources on finishing and releasing all the games they said they would release, without being distracted by Microsoft and asked to spread themselves even thinner with something like VR. Heck, maybe Microsoft should chuck them a bunch of software engineers to help out in any way they possibly can.
 
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Stare-Bear

Banned
The email mentions cloud but I've yet to see any VR market player attempt cloud VR. A bad connection might be barf inducing and it would be interesting to see how it would be approached.
Yeah, remember when Crackdown 3 was a thing and they said with the power of the cloud every gamer would have “a 1000 Xbox’s” of computing power.

Didn’t work out did it…
 

StueyDuck

Member
This is so hilarious because I remember around the launch of the PSVR2 all the console warrior numpties were calling MS amazing because they didn't want VR, I'm sure Jez Moron and the likes were all apart of it.

Turns out they've been wanting to join the VR market the whole time 🤣🤣
 
Everyone else was making the headsets & games for Windows Mixed Reality and that was still too much effort for Microsoft with the scaling back a few months ago :messenger_grinning_sweat: Can't see them getting fully invested with their own headset and VR exclusives myself.
 
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