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.