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Time To Say It: There's No Excuse For Microsoft Not Supporting VR on Xbox

What do you think MS's near-term to long-term move(s) for VR on Xbox are (Choose All That Apply)?

  • 3P VR whitelisted compatibility

    Votes: 76 38.2%
  • 1P VR hardware (9th gen)

    Votes: 8 4.0%
  • 1P VR software (9th gen)

    Votes: 12 6.0%
  • 1P VR hardware (10th gen)

    Votes: 18 9.0%
  • 1P VR software (10th gen)

    Votes: 16 8.0%
  • 1P AR (Augmented Reality/Mixed Reality) hardware (10th gen)

    Votes: 19 9.5%
  • 1P AR (Augmented Reality/Mixed Reality) software (10th gen)

    Votes: 15 7.5%
  • None of the above (MS will never support VR or AR/MR)

    Votes: 106 53.3%

  • Total voters
    199
  • Poll closed .
Lol. I've heard this 10 years ago. And 20 years ago.

Imagine thinking you can predict what a community you obviously don't belong to and know very little to nothing about will think in 10 years.
I know what people in the flight sim community want, or how their needs vary. Some people like multi-screen setups, some like curved screens, some like full-blown cockpits to sit in, some like just a few cockpit buttons instead of a full cockpit.

VR is going to allow all of these needs to be met. What is there here that VR won't have down the line?

And who did you hear it from 10 or 20 years ago? VR had practically no discussion at all back then. Certainly no consumer investment either.
 
Well that's irrelevant to MS.

MS is looking at whether there is a market for social MP gaming on VR. Currently, there just isn't.

You say that the growth trajectory is clear, but there is yet no evidence to support this view and companies like MS make business investment decisions based on data and evidence and not an optimistic outlook or hopes and dreams.

That's my main point.
That's fine. Now is not necessarily the time for Microsoft to jump in.

The growth trajectory is clear but companies don't typically base decisions like this on trajectories that will take a while to pay off.
 

Romulus

Member
"you guys will fade away"

LOL. You sound like an anime villain after he's been defeated for the 100th time.

You know absolutely nothing about the flight simulation community and market. Sims are certainly evolving fast, but they do so with increasingly complex, realistic, and hardware-demanding aircraft and applications that make VR *less* viable, not more.

I know you'd love for people who see the shortcomings of VR not to engage with you. It's comfy to have circlejerking threads without opposition, isn't it?

There isn't a single genre that has gone the way "where VR is the definitive way to play." Keep dreaming and calling those who slap reality in your face with petty little insults like "Boomers" while alleging they're upset lol. It's genuinely funny.


Anime villian. Ugh. Now youre trying to be funny. Stick with bitter. Definitely fit the simmer stereotype. Heres the real reality. People with VR can play flight sim and enjoy the scale of that world with depth perception. Thats indisputably a massive advantage and youre clueless why people are so amazed by it because you think VR is just a screen close your face. But, people with VR have the OPTION to play without VR, just as you do with all the 'advantages' you claim.
 

Romulus

Member
No my point is that Microsoft may not want to get into the VR market now because its not a very profitable business, its ina. Growth phase.

You say that I didnt like the other poster bringing up layden saying psvr hardware is making a profit. Its not that I didnt like it, it just does change my point, VR is still not a big money maker, its still a niche market.

You still didn't quote where im supposedly hung up on hardware sales lol. I never said that. The data is 2 years old on top of that.
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
You still didn't quote where im supposedly hung up on hardware sales lol. I never said that. The data is 2 years old on top of that.

You didn't need to of said it, you originally came at me because the layden quote, but its not some "gotcha" you seem to think it is.
 
Not really interested. I don't have faith in ms ability to multitask making core games and vr. Kinect is all the proof I need.

That reads like an indictment on Microsoft's competency of managing their 1P teams, and I don't know if I would particularly agree with it.

I don't want to derail the thread, but PSVR has been profitable since day one. Sony said it performed above there expectations multiple times: during launch campaign or after the first year.

No, it's a relevant piece of info, thanks for sharing it. Would make sense they sold the headset for a profit; generally all peripherals are. How much profit margin Sony's had on PSVR headsets and bundles is something I'd like to know, like for example if the ratio is in line with the profit margins on game controllers.

I think if PSVR had sold like 30mil, or like 30-40% of PS4 userbase, they would of been all in this gen.
When you are talking about this headset selling a few million, that headset selling a few million, over multiple years, they obviously dont feel its worth it yet, or mainstream enough yet.

But this was the exact case with game subscription and streaming services for years. PS Now had ~ 3 million in total in the span of six - seven years. PSVR sold 5 million units in four years.

GamePass had ~ 9 million subscribers by 2020, roughly a two-year period. By console sales standards this'd be considered average to somewhat below-average for a modern-day system. If the standard for determining if VR is not viable because it doesn't have sales volume in line with a gaming console, then PSVR, PS Now and potentially GamePass (we'd still need to know the subscription base numbers since the 18 million update) are all nonviable by that standard.

MS's efforts in the gaming space have always seemed to have been predicated on the premise of gaming as a social activity. For the longest time, they cared mostly about MP games and content and only backed SP stuff as a means to fill gaps in their FP portfolio to compete with Sony.

VR gaming is inherently SP (well, mostly), which I think is at odds with the mindset of the people running Xbox.

It also isn't likely going to sell them more GamePass subscriptions or XBL subs, which is the service-focused business MS as an entire organisation focusses on strongly.

If metaverse takes off, and MS finds some way to monetize VR through it with subscription-based services, you bet your ass they'll jump on board. Otherwise, MS simply doesn't care.

This is an interesting point; I think there are some counterexamples around such as Second Life. That thing is HUGE in VR spaces, and it's arguably the most social experience online though I'm not sure how much "game" you can actually claim is there.

However in terms of local MP, even for things like couch co-op, this argument might hold a good deal more weight. Some VR headsets have a passthrough so you can see a feed of your surroundings, but it's a low-quality feed, and probably not ideal when immersed in a VR game. Then again how much does this truly matter when most MP games are highly dependent on non-local/non couch co-op online? Might be something worth exploring.

Its incredibly simple if sony has a yearly budget of say $600 million for exclusive content and they decide to fund 4 VR games for $150million thats $150 million less for pancake games.

And lol at you comparing the current VR market to the console market. When xbox entered the gaming industry it was an established market where large profits is possible. This has not yet be proven in the VR market.

The tech MS could wait for, better screens, better lenses, better haptics, better sensors and as time goes on they will become cheaper.

MS already have access to these things; they need to in order to provide their WMR and whatnot devices to medical, military etc. companies and organizations. The issue on that note is probably not that such tech doesn't exist, but that it might be too cost-prohibitive for inclusion in a mass-market, mainstream VR gaming headset at a reasonable price.

I know some super-hardcore types wouldn't mind paying $10K, even $20K for such a headset, but the vast majority would. The question then is probably, are Microsoft doing active R&D into cost-reducing those components (or looking into ways that said components can be significantly cost-reduced) to fit into a reasonably-priced
mass-market, mainstream VR gaming device?

We don't know, and it's not like any of their recent public statements indicate they are, either.

Technology is always improving but what about the technology currently makes it something not worth doing. This would be like me saying I will never buy a graphics card until the technology improves then listing things that can improve like processing power.

That's kind of a hilariously accurate way of putting it x3.

Vr is profitable? I never said its impossible to make a profit from VR, but I very much doubt PSVR made a profit. They sold hardware at a loss or at cost and VR games sold very small numbers.

Well according to some links from yurinka yurinka and T Three , apparently PSVR did sell for profit from Day 1. Which makes sense if you think about it: it's a peripheral. Peripherals always sell for a profit.

Why not just open up for 3rd party? It's Windows after all.

Xbox's OS isn't out-and-out Windows, but shares some of the Windows kernel. That said, yes agreed that at least whitelisting compatibility with a 3P headset would be a great start.

You joke, but I could absolutely see the Metaverse making a huge dent in the gaming landscape. There is a reason Microsoft are investing a lot of money into the Metaverse.

To be honest, I actually think MS won't bother with a Xbox VR headset and will just release a Metaverse device.

TBH I have almost no understanding of this MetaVerse stuff, in terms of actual practice, so I'm curious what a MetaVerse device would be like and entail.

Practically speaking, however, even online, VR gaming is totally not a dominant social gaming activity the way popular online MP games are. So there's currently far less opportunity for MS to monetize it the way they can with for example Halo MP or Gears 5 online MP. So I'm sorry I just don't think your claim about VR being the "pinnacle of social gaming" holds up to any meaningful scrutiny at all, especially as we're talking about the business of videogames (and not the ability to convey mechanical interaction virtually on a theoretical basis).

I genuinely think just adding VR support for Halo, Gears etc. alone acts as its own way of incentivizing more "natural" monetization, i.e enabling more spending within the ecosystem of those games. You bring in more players and that means more people who'll potentially buy your content.

With Halo for example, some might be a lot more inclined to buy armor pieces if it means they can see them on their character while playing in a VR mode. Stuff like that.
 
I genuinely think just adding VR support for Halo, Gears etc. alone acts as its own way of incentivizing more "natural" monetization, i.e enabling more spending within the ecosystem of those games. You bring in more players and that means more people who'll potentially buy your content.

With Halo for example, some might be a lot more inclined to buy armor pieces if it means they can see them on their character while playing in a VR mode. Stuff like that.

I'm not really convinced by this, tbh.

Adding VR modes or content to existing franchises would serve as little more than a bone being thrown to platform VR users. I don't think that alone adds much incentive to users to spend more money on those games on for example MTXs.

It's pretty clear that by all metrics, long-term engagement is the most important factor selecting for increased user spend on video games. And engagement is achieved mostly through competition and cooperation in MP games, continued content updates to continually offer gamers a carrot to chase, and a continuous stream of new purchasable cosmetic content. VR doesn't uniquely offer any feature that advantages it in these three areas over traditional games.

So from the perspective of a publisher like MS whose focus is on growth by these means, why would they not just stick with investing in less risky traditional games that have vastly larger total addressable markets?
 

THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
This LITERALLY makes NO sense to me. What are you talking about? They'd still get 30% of all those games selling on a Xbox platform.

And how much of a cut do you think they get from thier 1st party studios? (Hint: It's 100%)
 

Danknugz

Member
too much shovel ware in the VR space and while there may be developer interest, not enough ROI for major studio support in most cases, it's kind of a tough situation for VR right now and although i'm disappointed i understand why MS isn't really warm to it. personally my valve index is still in the box and i do plan to get around to it. but a lot of things have me concerned about VR such as oculus forcing parity in Ownard for quest and basically ruining the game for PC loyal day one players. i hate games like beat saber but that's where all the mooney is going toward it seems, these "non reality" type fantasy VR games, which might be cool for some but to me it's just a huge boring disappointment.
 

Three

Member
As ive already said, the fact that PSVR only sold 5 million is the best evidence we have that it was not a great platform to make money with.
So much so that they want to suffer again and release PSVR2 go figure. You will never acknowledge anything so what's the point?
 
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Three

Member
So from the perspective of a publisher like MS whose focus is on growth by these means, why would they not just stick with investing in less risky traditional games that have vastly larger total addressable markets?
From a publisher perspective I don't think it is a problem for MS. There is more growth in VR than there is traditional games even if it is smaller. People say MS shouldn't waste time or money on VR without realising they already are as a publisher on other platforms.

FS2020 has VR support, Minecraft has VR support, Hellblade, Doom VR, Skyrim VR, Fallout 4 VR.

The numbers just don't add up for an xbox peripheral but as a publisher MS is already 'taking your finite pancake budget' for VR. 343 just hired a VR mod maker this summer too.
 
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Romulus

Member
You didn't need to of said it, you originally came at me because the layden quote, but its not some "gotcha" you seem to think it is.

I saw what you did. He brought something to the table with hardware profitability. Its not the end all, then you started in on stuff like software investment and R&D which is obvious but will always be unknown. Thats muddied waters because you intentionally pivoted to something we can't tangibly discuss. No one is stupid enough to believe platforms appear out of thin air or games are free to develop. It cost money, that part is known.
 

Abriael_GN

RSI Employee of the Year
I know what people in the flight sim community want, or how their needs vary. Some people like multi-screen setups, some like curved screens, some like full-blown cockpits to sit in, some like just a few cockpit buttons instead of a full cockpit.

VR is going to allow all of these needs to be met. What is there here that VR won't have down the line?

And who did you hear it from 10 or 20 years ago? VR had practically no discussion at all back then. Certainly no consumer investment either.

LOL the conversation about virtual reality is much older than you think it is. The "in 5-8-10-20 years everyone will be playing games in virtual reality!" thing is something we've heard since the times of the SNES, if not earlier. People have pushed it in the flight simulation community since the times of Flight Simulator 98 at the very least, much to the hilarity of most.

Also, if you think most core simmers want to squeeze themselves into a headset, you literally don't know flight simulation beyond the most amateurish levels. The more complex the aircraft and the flight, the more interactions with applications and elements outside of the simulator itself are needed. Have you ever heard of something called paper? Pilots still use it, and so do simmers. Try noting down an ATC clearance that you'll need to repeat precisely while wearing a VR headset. I dare you. 😂

"Sorry hold-on, I need to type that letter by letter on my virtual scratchpad!" lol. I can already hear the air traffic controller groan.

This without considering that a lot of flights can easily last several hours, and if you expect most simmers will want to wear a headset for that long (not to mention being able to completely isolate themselves from the world for that long. People have responsibilities, you know?), you're dreaming. This ain't a quick amusement park ride.

Anime villian. Ugh. Now youre trying to be funny. Stick with bitter. Definitely fit the simmer stereotype. Heres the real reality. People with VR can play flight sim and enjoy the scale of that world with depth perception. Thats indisputably a massive advantage and youre clueless why people are so amazed by it because you think VR is just a screen close your face. But, people with VR have the OPTION to play without VR, just as you do with all the 'advantages' you claim.

It's funny as hell that you think that lack of VR actually removes depth perception. Without depth perception, you couldn't even land. Depth perception is an absolutely indispensable factor in putting an aircraft on the ground, let alone in challenging environments like night, crosswinds, and so forth. The only one that's clueless is you, but you must know your case is weak, considering that you have to literally invent advantages that don't exist.

PS: I've tried plenty of VR. Due to my job, I likely have access to most VR headsets earlier than you do. And I tried every available simulator in VR. I can compare. On the other hand, I seriously doubt you've ever tried core flight simulation beyond very casual joyrides. Otherwise, you wouldn't be as completely clueless about it as you are.
 
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Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
I saw what you did. He brought something to the table with hardware profitability. Its not the end all, then you started in on stuff like software investment and R&D which is obvious but will always be unknown. Thats muddied waters because you intentionally pivoted to something we can't tangibly discuss. No one is stupid enough to believe platforms appear out of thin air or games are free to develop. It cost money, that part is known.

But it does not matter because its just a fact that the VR market is not making big profits and is niche.
So the layden quote does not prove my point wrong, so in the end you are just cherrypicking for some odd reason.

The truth is you seem hell bent on trying to "gotcha" me instead of actually being part of the discussion.

Yeah I did pivot from the layden quote, so what, as ive said a 1000 times that quote doesn't disprove my point so its meaningless anyway.
 
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So where are all those VR gamers then? Is VR even used for gaming to start with?

Because on steam and twitch VR is practically a corpse already since its creation. VR is now on the market for a while already and yet still no game in the top 100 that gets played. Nobody on twitch that all bought into those helmets is using it.

So what exactly are publishers missing out on?

Please tell me you're not using Twitch viewer numbers to justify if VR is worth it or not. Roblox is one of the biggest revenue-generating games in the entire industry, whether talking consoles or mobile, and right now it has a viewer count of 2.6K on Twitch.

By that logic, the game should be considered dead, but it's clearly alive and thriving (financially). Minecraft currently has 34.7K viewers so clearly not up there with games like VALORANT, yet it earns magnitudes more money and has way more active players than that game.

You can't use Twitch viewers as a reliable metric in measuring the userbase growth of any game or even platform.

It's amazing though. Astrobot Rescue Mission was one of those games that completely wowed me the same way Mario 64 did when i was a kid. I definitely think VR has a bright future ahead and if anything porn will definitely drive it.

For better (and for worst xD)

Regardless of how big online MP gaming is, online MP VR games are currently NOT a significant part of that success. So the size and popularity of online MP traditional games is entirely immaterial to VR, if VR gaming doesn't currently contribute meaningfully. I can't think of a single example of a hugely successful online MP VR game.

VR is just not a dominant force in the online MP sphere, so it is totally not the "pinnacle of social gaming".

It depends on how you classify a "game", but like said before I'm sure Second Life is one of the biggest things in VR space and has one of the largest online communities of any online game you can think of.

Nothing stopping Sony throwing the exact same B-tier studio support behind this and other 'tacked on' experiences and expecting a different result I guess...

As others have pointed out, I also see this as another Kinect-style venture, ultimately leading to a lack of focus and taking resources away from the experiences the majority values. The non-zero sum game argument didn't apply there as businesses aren't immune to bad decisions. It was at this point the PS3 started streaking ahead in sales, releasing exclusive after exclusive, whilst MS had pivoted Lionhead to make Fable: The Journey. This is the challenge Sony has now in front of them.

This is actually a legitimate point of concern, since it's certainly the case they'll be investing a lot more into VR software this gen versus the previous one, including upping the scale of the games and production value.

But there are answers for Sony to address this. The first is in contracting 3P developers to do the grunt of the work, and providing technical support an assistance with certain 1P studios and their ICE teams. The other is to craft experiences that work well in both a non-VR and VR space, preferably without compromising on game design in a way that has a negative impact.

That said at least from what we know so far it seems Sony have that potential issue under control; comparisons with Kinect aren't exactly fair given at that time Microsoft had very few 1P studios and most of 360's exclusives were from 3P developers & publishers, some out of convenience due to 360 being easier to develop for and probably being cheaper to develop for as well in terms of costs. Those issues gradually were resolved with PS3 over the years and by 2011 it was getting pretty much all the same 3P games the 360 was receiving.

So, that meant 360 was getting less exclusives around then since 3P devs had less reason to skip the PS3, and that kind of exposed MS's lack of internal 1P teams being a problem, since what few 1P teams they had, some had to be put to focus on Kinect, like Lionhead and Rare. That was exacerbated when moving to XBO since they had to turn to 3P devs to even do additional Kinect content, let alone secure more XBO exclusives for the launch period! Sony's not had a problem with an anemic number of 1P studios, and even now most of their studios have multiple teams and are pretty big employee count-wise.

I just don't see the reason to wait, at least with a limited approach. If facebook is a problem, try and get WMR on there. If WMR hit Xbox maybe we'd get another round of headsets from third-parties (I'm not sure which WMR headsets are still being sold). Other than getting the headsets supported and developing a VR UI, they wouldn't need to invest much more into it. Maybe get a few VR modes added to some of their FP games and Forza. Even if VR is niche from a business standpoint, I don't think it would cost that much to offer basic support.

Plus, offering any VR support at all would dampen the look that Sony is the only console with VR support and therefore more advanced in some way. A win-win across the board. They had talked about WMR on Xbox during the X1 gen, but I can see those CPUs being a problem.

Quest airlink support would be ideal, IMO. Or the new Valve standalone headset, but knowing valve this one might be expensive.

Preach! They lose nothing by whitelisting a 3P solution via a partnership or something, and gain more content for people in the Xbox ecosystem and GamePass ecosystem to enjoy. That equals more revenue; even if it's not a "massive" amount of additional revenue, it all still adds up.

I'm not really convinced by this, tbh.

Adding VR modes or content to existing franchises would serve as little more than a bone being thrown to platform VR users. I don't think that alone adds much incentive to users to spend more money on those games on for example MTXs.

That's not really the way in which I thought of it being a net benefit to the platform. In actuality, I meant it more in the context of, if MS adds VR support to Xbox platforms, it will draw in VR users to that platform and since the vast majority of VR users also play non-VR games, that acts as a net benefit to the platform since it offers non-VR content that those players (who would have otherwise ignored the platform due to it not having VR support) will likely want to play, whether they play it with VR or traditionally.

The VR user isn't generally against playing a game traditionally; however, they might be less inclined to invest in a platform that doesn't offer VR support whatsoever for the times they might feel like playing a game in VR on that platform.

It's pretty clear that by all metrics, long-term engagement is the most important factor selecting for increased user spend on video games. And engagement is achieved mostly through competition and cooperation in MP games, continued content updates to continually offer gamers a carrot to chase, and a continuous stream of new purchasable cosmetic content. VR doesn't uniquely offer any feature that advantages it in these three areas over traditional games.

You're right, it doesn't, but IMO it doesn't need to. I don't necessarily agree with framing VR, either explicitly or implicitly, as something in "competition" with traditional gaming. It can 100% be seen as a value-add, and by what I was saying earlier the platform simply extending support for existing VR solutions could draw in users that'd otherwise ignore the platform, to spend more within it.

Their presence alone is the additional engagement and user spending, because it's not like that customer who came in due to the platform supporting VR, is ONLY there to play VR games or games in VR. They want VR support as something to take into consideration as a totality to a platform's value to them, but that's going to only be one type of form of the content they play on that platform, hence how their presence benefits other content in terms of active users and monetization.

To put it another way, if those types of gamers are really only in it for VR, they would most likely just buy a Quest 2 over an Xbox regardless of what 3P VR headsets it supported, or a PS5 & PSVR2, etc. Since at that point, such a person's total sum experience focuses exclusively around VR, and they'd ultimately want a product that also focuses exclusively on VR, too.
 
LOL the conversation about virtual reality is much older than you think it is. The "in 5-8-10-20 years everyone will be playing games in virtual reality!" thing is something we've heard since the times of the SNES, if not earlier.

Also, if you think most core simmers want to squeeze themselves into a headset, you literally don't know flight simulation beyond the most amateurish levels. The more complex the aircraft and the flight, the more interactions with applications and elements outside of the simulator itself are needed. Have you ever heard of something called paper? Pilots still use it, and so do simmers. Try noting down an ATC clearance that you'll need to repeat precisely while wearing a VR headset. I dare you. 😂

"Sorry hold-on, I need to type that letter by letter on my virtual scratchpad!" lol. I can already hear the air traffic controller groan.

This without considering that a lot of flights can easily last several hours, and if you expect most simmers will want to wear a headset for that long (not to mention being able to completely isolate themselves from the world for that long. People have responsibilities, you know?), you're dreaming. This ain't a quick amusement park ride.

You're making assumptions about the tech as if it can't provide for even the edgecase needs of flight simmers.

Need to write on a piece of paper? Cool, the paper will just be a part of your view using mixed reality capabilities.

Need to see all the little buttons on your real world cockpit setup? Cool. You'll be able to see those.

Need to see others around you so you don't feel isolated, or even your coffee mug? Cool. The headset will be able to display them in your virtual view.

Need to spend hours on end in the sim? Cool. Compact VR headsets will make that easily doable, and actually offer better eye comfort than any traditional display setup due to optics allowing for the eyes to naturally change focus.

And you may have had certain discussions on forums 10 or 20 years ago, but there was no market and no signs of a market starting back then.

It's funny as hell that you think that lack of VR actually removes depth perception. Without depth perception, you couldn't even land. Depth perception is an absolutely indispensable factor in putting an aircraft on the ground, let alone in challenging environments like night, crosswinds, and so forth. The only one that's clueless is you, but you must know your case is weak, considering that you have to literally invent advantages that don't exist.
You have some level of depth perception, but the full range is only possible in VR. I'm sure you won't argue this at least, right?
 
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Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
So much so that they want to suffer again and release PSVR2 go figure. You will never acknowledge anything so what's the point?

Acknowledge what?

Even zukenberg thinks that until 10million units an ecosystem is not viable for most developers.

And what am I not acknowledging? The bottom line is the VR market is currently small and not very profitable, which could be a perfectly valid reason for why Microsoft does not want to get into the industry, you have provided not a reasonable argument for why this may not be the case.

Sony are releaseing PSVR2 to try and build a platform and get a strong position in the market. However this is not the only viable strategy.
 
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Abriael_GN

RSI Employee of the Year
You're making assumptions about the tech as if it can't provide for even the edgecase needs of flight simmers.

Because it can't. And whether it'll be able to in an even semi-near future at non-prohibitive prices and without taking up so much hardware resources that it becomes a liability is certainly not assured.

May as well expect us all to be in Sword Art Online by then, because why not? 😂

I don't judge a tech on vague promises just like I don't judge the potential of screens on 16k and 67122834324 hertz.

You have some level of depth perception, but the full range is only possible in VR. I'm sure you won't argue this at least, right?

The additional depth perception provided by VR is by no means as strong an advantage as the other fanatic makes it up to be.
 
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Codes 208

Member
Supporting VR wont magically make want an xbox series. I have an oculus and the link cable for my pc but outside of the occasional urge to play beat saber its just a dust collector.
 
Because it can't. And whether it'll be able to in an even semi-near future at non-prohibitive prices and without taking up so much hardware resources that it becomes a liability is certainly not assured.

May as well expect us all to be in Sword Art Online by then, because why not? 😂

I don't judge a tech on vague promises just like I don't judge the potential of screens on 16k and 67122834324 hertz.
Because it can't? Then sorry, what is the Varjo XR-3 headset doing. Are the videos of it's use in flight sims fake? Are the public demos that people have hands on fake impressions? No. It's real technology.

Mixed reality capabilities is not particularly expensive to introduce because it's mostly reliant on software.
 

Romulus

Member
it's funny as hell that you think that lack of VR actually removes depth perception. Without depth perception, you couldn't even land. Depth perception is an absolutely indispensable factor in putting an aircraft on the ground, let alone in challenging environments like night, crosswinds, and so forth. The only one that's clueless is you, but you must know your case is weak, considering that you have to literally invent advantages that don't exist.

PS: I've tried plenty of VR. Due to my job, I likely have access to most VR headsets earlier than you do. And I tried every available simulator in VR. I can compare. On the other hand, I seriously doubt you've ever tried core flight simulation beyond very casual joyrides. Otherwise, you wouldn't be as completely clueless about it as you are.


Depth perception is next to zero by comparison to VR. You land the plane but you really don't know where anything is. For you to act like VR doesn't have a massive advantage in-depth perception proves you've never used it. You're outright lying, which I suspected from the beginning.
Of course, you don't even try to address scale because you don't understand the advantage. Try and you will.




VR has the advantage



Air Force







Navy and Marines







Yet some random wannabe pilot knows more than all the combined armed forces. Why even bother with VR if it's overrated? Why train the best in the world with it? Casual joyrides. lol.
 
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Happy for PS to continue with the tech but it won't take off until Nintendo and Xbox get in on it as well.

There's just going to be fuck all market penetration if PS goes it alone.
 

Romulus

Member
But it does not matter because its just a fact that the VR market is not making big profits and is niche.
So the layden quote does not prove my point wrong, so in the end you are just cherrypicking for some odd reason.

The truth is you seem hell bent on trying to "gotcha" me instead of actually being part of the discussion.

Yeah I did pivot from the layden quote, so what, as ive said a 1000 times that quote doesn't disprove my point so its meaningless anyway.


You seem hell-bent on name-calling. You basically called the guy dumb after you changed the goalposts with points we have no way of proving either way. Pure deflection.
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
You seem hell-bent on name-calling. You basically called the guy dumb after you changed the goalposts with points we have no way of proving either way. Pure deflection.

Name calling? I dont call you any names.

All you have done is deflection. You are not even talking about the topic at hand.

you dont even attempt to reply to any of my points in my prior post, you just keep repeating the same thing, its not going to get you anywhere.
 

Romulus

Member
Name calling? I dont call you any names.

All you have done is deflection. You are not even talking about the topic at hand.

you dont even attempt to reply to any of my points in my prior post, you just keep repeating the same thing, its not going to get you anywhere.


You haven't said anything new. VR niche. You're repeating yourself. Layden said, repeating himself.I never said you called me a name. You're not even paying attention at this point.
 
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Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
You haven't said anything new. VR niche. You're repeating yourself. Layden said, repeating himself.I never said you called me a name. You're not even paying attention at this point.

Because you are not acknowledging any of it.

I get that i brought up R+D and game development costs, and you take issue with that because theres no way to prove it.... While we dont know these costs, we know that a platform and games cant be made without them, of course the PSVR had R + D and game dev costs.

But you also fail to acknowledge thats the PSVR making money on hardware does not disprove my main points anyway.

Please directly address these two points above otherwise we are just going round in circles.
 
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coffinbirth

Member
There doesn't need to be an excuse if there's a reason.

That reason is because VR isn't a viable platform for them yet.

Once anyone can play Halo in VR without any compromises and/or getting motion sickness is when you'll see them enter the fold.
 

Romulus

Member
Because you are not acknowledging any of it.

I get that i brought up R+D and game development costs, and you take issue with that because theres no way to prove it.... While we dont know these costs, we know that a platform and games cant be made without them, of course the PSVR had R + D and game dev costs.

But you also fail to acknowledge thats the PSVR making money on hardware does not disprove my main points anyway.

Please directly address these two points above otherwise we are just going round in circles.


I think we already went in circles. I don't even understand what you're saying about PSVR making money on hardware and your point. That wasn't the main reason I quoted you to begin with.
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
I think we already went in circles. I don't even understand what you're saying about PSVR making money on hardware and your point. That wasn't the main reason I quoted you to begin with.

I dont even know what your issue with me is.
 
VR is no where near what it needs to be at in terms of price it need to cost no more than 200 or lower and needs to be totally wireless.
Right now it is very Niche i don't see many people buying a 300-400 VR plus the games for it are not very good at all.
 

Three

Member
Acknowledge what?

Even zukenberg thinks that until 10million units an ecosystem is not viable for most developers.

And what am I not acknowledging? The bottom line is the VR market is currently small and not very profitable, which could be a perfectly valid reason for why Microsoft does not want to get into the industry, you have provided not a reasonable argument for why this may not be the case.

Sony are releaseing PSVR2 to try and build a platform and get a strong position in the market. However this is not the only viable strategy.
Acknowledge the fact that it is viable if they are still doing it after the first. Does it make huge piles of cash for them? Maybe, I don't know but I also don't care.

It's the stupidest thing to be arguing when they're happy enough to still support it. If I get more immersive games why would I care if a trillion dollar company like Microsoft only made an additional $200M from supporting VR instead of $3B or whatever you think is worthwhile?

I actually agree that economically for them it probably doesn't make sense on xbox peripherals but you tried to make it seem as if them doing it would take away your pancake games budget when it won't. MS are hiring and supporting VR already and it's not affecting you. They're just not supporting it on xbox, at least for now.
 
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From a publisher perspective I don't think it is a problem for MS. There is more growth in VR than there is traditional games even if it is smaller. People say MS shouldn't waste time or money on VR without realising they already are as a publisher on other platforms.

FS2020 has VR support, Minecraft has VR support, Hellblade, Doom VR, Skyrim VR, Fallout 4 VR.

The numbers just don't add up for an xbox peripheral but as a publisher MS is already 'taking your finite pancake budget' for VR. 343 just hired a VR mod maker this summer too.

Wow, ok.

I take it back. They obviously have an Xbox VR headset in the works then. There's no way they push to support VR on PC and not on their own gaming console.

That's not really the way in which I thought of it being a net benefit to the platform. In actuality, I meant it more in the context of, if MS adds VR support to Xbox platforms, it will draw in VR users to that platform and since the vast majority of VR users also play non-VR games, that acts as a net benefit to the platform since it offers non-VR content that those players (who would have otherwise ignored the platform due to it not having VR support) will likely want to play, whether they play it with VR or traditionally.

The VR user isn't generally against playing a game traditionally; however, they might be less inclined to invest in a platform that doesn't offer VR support whatsoever for the times they might feel like playing a game in VR on that platform.



You're right, it doesn't, but IMO it doesn't need to. I don't necessarily agree with framing VR, either explicitly or implicitly, as something in "competition" with traditional gaming. It can 100% be seen as a value-add, and by what I was saying earlier the platform simply extending support for existing VR solutions could draw in users that'd otherwise ignore the platform, to spend more within it.

Their presence alone is the additional engagement and user spending, because it's not like that customer who came in due to the platform supporting VR, is ONLY there to play VR games or games in VR. They want VR support as something to take into consideration as a totality to a platform's value to them, but that's going to only be one type of form of the content they play on that platform, hence how their presence benefits other content in terms of active users and monetization.

To put it another way, if those types of gamers are really only in it for VR, they would most likely just buy a Quest 2 over an Xbox regardless of what 3P VR headsets it supported, or a PS5 & PSVR2, etc. Since at that point, such a person's total sum experience focuses exclusively around VR, and they'd ultimately want a product that also focuses exclusively on VR, too.

All solid and well-reasoned points.

Ok, you've convinced me.
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
Acknowledge the fact that it is viable if they are still doing it after the first. Does it make huge piles of cash for them? Maybe, I don't know but I also don't care.

It's the stupidest thing to be arguing when they're happy enough to still support it. If I get more immersive games why would I care if a trillion dollar company like Microsoft only made an additional $200M from supporting VR instead of $3B or whatever you think is worthwhile?

I actually agree that economically for them it probably doesn't make sense on xbox peripherals but you tried to make it seem as if them doing it would take away your pancake games budget when it won't. MS are hiring and supporting VR already and it's not affecting you. They're just not supporting it on xbox, at least for now.
I said in the post you quoted that both stratagies are viable....

The bolded is something we disagree on. You think that sony allocate a seperate budget for VR which has no repercussions on there pancake game budget. I disagree, not that imtrying to convince you (I now know thats not possible) but I think development of VR games will mean less pancake games.
Please Dont waste your time trying to convince me otherwise I find your reasonings very poor.
 
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Menzies

Banned
I said in the post you quoted that both stratagies are viable....

The bolded is something we disagree on. You think that sony allocate a seperate budget for VR which has no repercussions on there pancake game budget. I disagree, not that imtrying to convince you (I now know thats not possible) but I think development of VR games will mean less pancake games.
Please Dont waste your time trying to convince me otherwise I find your reasonings very poor.

100% with you. I just can't logically reason that a separate pot of gold just...materializes to fund these additional VR efforts. That a new developer can just be purchased for every new game and absolutely nothing is impacted or constrained on more traditional games.

It may have gone unnoticed at a time when one platform had 15 developers and the other had 5, but everyone will notice now.
 
While there are definitely some MS games I would love to see in VR, I really hope that Microsoft does not get distracted with VR. When you are trying to come back from a terrible generation you don't need distractions. Kinect was fools gold, and I think VR is also fool's gold at this point
 
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mckmas8808

Banned
VR is no where near what it needs to be at in terms of price it need to cost no more than 200 or lower and needs to be totally wireless.
Right now it is very Niche i don't see many people buying a 300-400 VR plus the games for it are not very good at all.

In the first-gen of VR, the headsets sold over 20 million units! So I'm not sure why you think the bolded.
 

Three

Member
It may have gone unnoticed at a time when one platform had 15 developers and the other had 5, but everyone will notice now.
If VR is such a time sink and budget constraint for a studio I guess MS has no issue giving up a studio for the competition



I just can't logically reason that a separate pot of gold just...materializes to fund these additional VR efforts. That a new developer can just be purchased for every new game and absolutely nothing is impacted or constrained on more traditional games.
A pot of gold is what companies have saved up to invest in new ventures for expansion. Where do you think that $10Billion pot of gold materialised from for MS to buy Zenimax and Mojang? It certainly isn't in xbox's 'finite yearly budget' is it.

Besides you don't need to buy studios, you can hire them, make money and hire again for the next game.
Developers of Sony published VR only games during PS4.
Game: Dev

Blood and Truth : London Studio
VR worlds: London Studio
Firewall Zero Hour : FCE Inc
Bravo Team: Supermassive Games
Astrobot: Japan Studio
Farpoint: Impulse gear
Iron Man: Camouflj
Until Dawn RoB: Supermassive games
Everybody's Golf VR: Clap Hanz

Hybrid games
GT Sport: Polyphony
Dreams: Media Molecule
Wipeout: XDEV, Creative beans, CVS
No Mans Sky: Hello Games

Notice no new developers were bought for every game and yet they had a budget for paying these people and still make a load of PS4 pancake exclusives. These are Sony published games, now include games that are on it that Sony make money from but don't publish like Beat Saber, Tetris Effect, Superhot, Ace Combat, etc. Those games getting made don't affect your pancake games whatsoever. Agree? So why not allow it by at least having VR hardware support.
 
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THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
But they get 0% from those games if they don't allow VR headsets on Xbox Series consoles. 30% is greater than 0%.

Only if you assume the same player wouldn't be playing xbox instead, which is what I suspect the numbers suggest. It doesn't make sense to pull gamers away from a sandbox where you own half the good it's for one that you own none as of today.

The only counter arguement is that you might lose them to other platforms.
 
From a publisher perspective I don't think it is a problem for MS. There is more growth in VR than there is traditional games even if it is smaller. People say MS shouldn't waste time or money on VR without realising they already are as a publisher on other platforms.

FS2020 has VR support, Minecraft has VR support, Hellblade, Doom VR, Skyrim VR, Fallout 4 VR.

The numbers just don't add up for an xbox peripheral but as a publisher MS is already 'taking your finite pancake budget' for VR. 343 just hired a VR mod maker this summer too.
Making games VR compatible is several orders of magnitude less of a commitment than making your own peripheral and platform. The former might make financial sense, while the latter doesn't.
 

Three

Member
I'm not going digging, but I know I've seen you say otherwise.

Got that post bookmarked for next time
So why bring it up?
Good for you I guess but when I've explicitly have said the opposite what exactly are you trying to achieve?

Look, you can steer this into console war nonsense with this derail but companies losing/making money doesn't bother me even though I discuss sales/profits in the industry here with others.
 
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