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[DaGwaphics]

I think it's smart to not invest too much into it at this point.

However, rather than not have any VR support at all I would have worked on comparability with third-party VR headsets. At minimum the WMR headsets and maybe the Quest via airlink or something along those lines. If you had that all you'd really need is a new section in the store. MS would not necessarily need to put a lot of man hours into VR specific software, maybe just VR modes for its many FPS games and let third parties provide the rest of the software. This way you aren't betting the farm on it, but also aren't missing a feature in comparison to your rivals.

 

[SF Kosmo]

I'm a believer in VR and it's future, but the present reality of both the VR market and Microsoft's present state is that they're probably better focusing on building mass market titles than servicing a niche.

Sony is in a better position to be pushing VR. VR is a side dish, rather than a main attraction and that's probably going to be the case for a while.

 

[VGEsoterica]

I'd have loved to have seen it but I can understand why they bailed

 

[The_Mike]

This thread can be summed up as:

Tell me you've never played VR without telling me you've never played VR.

*Google most Old VR games*

10 Of The Most Popular VR Games On Steam

Virtual Reality has become an incredible way to game - and these VR games are the best of the best on Steam.

www.thegamer.com

The only game people outside vr knows is hl alyx. The only system seller.

But yeah I keep hearing people that still believes vr is the future your exact comment.

Keep the rebellion going.

 

[Three]

Thing is you don't have time to play serius games (what demand more then few hours at the time). You are disconnected from world, people & everyting around you.
VR will never be mainstream.

Neither is console gaming but I don't see people asking MS and Sony to concentrate on mobile games. Honestly the idea that MS didn't do VR on Xbox One X so that they can concentrate on regular games is insulting especially with the current state of fp regular games.

 

[Wonko_C]

For the Xbox One X it was a good move because it was already too late in that generation and the original Xbox One was too weak for it. For Series XS they're still trying to catch up to Sony and even Meta Quest 2 is outselling their Series consoles, so it makes sense to them to keep focusing on flat screen gaming.

For PC though? They already have their own platform and have VR support for Flight Simulator, but why stop there? I'd really liked to have VR support for Forza Horizon 5, because I wouldn't have dropped it after a few minutes otherwise... Although I can say this for almost any game (If your game doesn't support VR, I'll either wait for a VR mod or get bored of it within minutes). My flat backlog has already been replaced by a VR backlog, LOL.

 

[midnightAI]

5 million units sold. how many PSVR games sold? has a PSVR only game ever topped the charts?

And has gamepass ever turned a profit?

Don't get me wrong, I love gamepass, but VR sells extremely well for something so expensive (when you factor in other hardware such as consoles and PC's that are required for most VR).

Anyway, on topic, was Microsoft right to drop VR, absolutely. Was Sony right in pursuing VR, definitely.

 

[R6Rider]

Damn, I love topics that bring up VR because you can almost always tell the people who have never played a proper VR title. It's often these same people giving the wildest hot takes on the topic.

 

[Son_of_Zardoz]

I think it was smart due to where they were at the time. Obviously they are doing a much better job overall with the Series consoles than they did with the One. If they would have tried to shoehorn VR in there it just would have taken away needed resources just to output regular games. That being said I hope they do pursue VR in the not-too-distant future and I'm glad Sony is doing it right now. I can't wait to see what PSVR2 can do.

 

[JLB]

psvr2 is an incomprehensible mistake from Sony. I guess they made some internal calculation of whats worse, releasing the thing and provide some basic support for a time, or completely ditch it.
VR without a wireless and companion free option after quest feels prehistoric.

 

[Team Andromeda]

Ignoring the billions poured into it by Facebook, steam, vive/HTC and Sony?

Not to mention how many upcoming EA games are VR or have VR modes? Sure is dead though.

Battlefield VR will change the game.

PSVR was a tech demo. It was akin to Dk2 and the early headsets of oculus and steam. It was a proof of concept sold to those who wanted to try it. PSVR was by far the weakest and shittest of the VR headset on the market at the time, let lone the crappy wires and breakout box and still sold 6 million. That isn't a flop, it's a fucking miracle. Hit man 3 is some kind of magic on that headset, I've no idea how it looks so good.



Vr as a market makes more money than gaming subscriptions as a market. There was a pie chart floating around earlier in the year which showed it. VR is more popular to gamers than subscription services are. That's not taking away from gamepass, because a subscription or digital service is going to be a requirement when VR hits full swing. But right now, to say VR is a gimmick and subscription services aren't, flies in the face of all of the data.



This thread can be summed up as:

Tell me you've never played VR without telling me you've never played VR.

I've no interest in Meta and SONY support for VR has been poor with most of their big AAA game either not supporting VR or having tacked on VR mode like that seen in GT Sport.
I own the SONY VR thank you very much

 

[DeepEnigma]

It's fine that they don't support it, and besides, Windows PCs have VR anyhow.

But if they ever decide to make a headset, it will be a, "OMG, we love VR now™" moment, here and across the twittardsphere.

 

[UltimaKilo]

Then you get the situation when iPods took over the market and Zune couldn't get a foothold.

The difference is that it’s so incredibly early for VR, and they have plenty of time to figure out a business model. Heck, they can even simply partner with someone like Valve or HTC, but I think it’s more likely they just buy someone out.

It’s nowhere near too late, they have at least 3-5 years.

 

[Polygonal_Sprite]

Like I said, not even Sony are taking VR seriously.
If Sony was really interested in VR, most of their main studios would be making AAA VR games. For Sony, VR is a addon for indie developers to play with. If it's successful, good for them. If not, no harm done.

I disagree. You don't spend a few billion on R&D for something if you're not going to support it. IMO all their new / updated engines will support VR so they can leverage spin off games like the Horizon one while having VR focused team and partners make core VR titles.

 

[64bitmodels]

They were 100% wrong. Walking back on a promise like this is pretty lazy and they actually would have a big advantage if they simply offered support for PC headsets.

The entire Xbox One generation was a big embarrassment.

Welcome back bro

 

[MarkMe2525]

It wasn't the developers. The developers would have been on board if the audience was there. it was xboxs small install base making MS not care and therefore no dev support for something that didn’t exist. They made that half promise in the hope that Xbox One X will improve sales to the point it becomes viable and they didn't want to come up short by simply saying no we have no viable market at the moment for VR support. So they bullshitted people with a $3000 hololens at E3 and said XB1X will have VR support. Penello said we aren't doing VR "this year" when asked about Xbox One X, he talked about audience size for a viable product. I just look forward to whenever they do and we can all pretend VR wasn't ready but now is. Back then they were pushing VR support as streaming pancake games on Oculus, that was somehow mainstream enough I guess.

How did they bullshit people with halogens? They never stated that was coming to the Xbox platform nor were they gonna target it for the consumer market. They were showing proof of concepts and potential future avenues in gaming. I actually got to experience the Halo Hololens experience at the 2015 e3, it was a real thing.

 

[64bitmodels]

Nope. Quest 2 is doing gangbusters and psvr2 will likely sell more than the first one.
Microsoft doesn't even need to make their own vr headset, Xbox runs on windows. The most they'd need to do Is add wmr support to Xbox and bam vr. It's such an easy thing to do but they refuse for some reason. I would fucking love an xbox headset, they have the most fps franchises in the industry. Halo VR would be awesome

 

[FalsettoVibe]

Can't wait to come back and read though this thread one day should MS choose to develop a VR headset.

 

[Kokoloko85]

Its fine for now.

Give it a generation or 2 and they will have to Join because its only gonna get better and better. Its not a gimmick like 3D or Motion controls or kennect. Its here to stay and will just get better

 

[Three]

How did they bullshit people with halogens? They never stated that was coming to the Xbox platform nor were they gonna target it for the consumer market. They were showing proof of concepts and potential future avenues in gaming. I actually got to experience the Halo Hololens experience at the 2015 e3, it was a real thing.

I distinctly remember arguing with people that this was not coming to xbox one as a consumer product, they were adamant it was based on E3.

MS were all to happy to let vaporware hype overshadow real products by not mentioning this is not going to really be a consumer facing product any time soon. Only later when we learned about its cost did that become clear to some people. Unsurprisingly literally nobody was saying "why are they wasting resources on this" at the time.

 

[Bridges]

I was mad when they first backtracked on this, but actually I think it was the right call. As others have said, their first party was in complete disarray, they really needed to prioritize on making their existing offerings better before expanding to VR.

Sony has been killing it for years with their software so they can afford to divert resources to PSVR.

It would be awesome to one day get Oculus integration with Xbox but for now I am happy to see them ramp up their "2D" offerings

 

[ResilientBanana]

Yes. VR is a gimmick and I say this as someone who has owned two VR headsets.

shit-take

The current library of games, outside of a select few are gimmicks. But the games that are not are fantastic.

 

[phil_t98]

And has gamepass ever turned a profit?

Don't get me wrong, I love gamepass, but VR sells extremely well for something so expensive (when you factor in other hardware such as consoles and PC's that are required for most VR).

Anyway, on topic, was Microsoft right to drop VR, absolutely. Was Sony right in pursuing VR, definitely.

nobody knows if gamepass has made a profit or not. the poster I was responding to didn't say profit just said more money than gamepass. there's a difference.

I agree they were 100% right not to go the VR route. I think Sony need to sell more than 5 million this time round. one think the could effect sales is the tanking economy of the world with prices hikes of food and other things like utilities price hikes

 

[zzill3]

I’ve played with VR for a while at arcades and such, it’s pretty fun for a short while but can’t see it catching on.

It’s a new, novel way of interacting with games that will have disappeared by next gen.

 

[DeepEnigma]

I distinctly remember arguing with people that this was not coming to xbox one as a consumer product, they were adamant it was based on E3.

MS were all to happy to let vaporware hype overshadow real products by not mentioning this is not going to really be a consumer facing product any time soon. Only later when we learned about its cost did that become clear to some people. Unsurprisingly literally nobody was saying "why are they wasting resources on this" at the time.

They needed something to combat Sony's VR talks and fill a good portion of stage time. It was pure PR smoke & mirrors, especially how they misled the viewing size for Minecraft with the "camera view" saying it's what you see. When in reality, you see out this tiny little claustrophobic box on the lenses.

And yes, I remember those arguments on here as well. Down to where ones were saying this "narrow AR is better than VR" based on their console/brand preference. It was all stupid, lol.

 

[Crayon]

There's no way practically everyone in this thread thought ms actually had some vr planned. Idk sometimes.

 

[johnjohn]

I think VR has the potential to become mainstream eventually as long as the tech continues to improve, but I don't think that's going to happen with it attached to a console.

 

[poppabk]

Some people seems to be unable to differentiate between Xbox console and Microsoft's long time involvement in VR (and of course AR) via PCVR. Many of their PC games already support VR. They are also active in VR and AR hardware development like the WMR HP Reverb G2 headset, and not the least via implementing and promoting the OpenXR API.

Anyway, on-topic: I think they was right. The Xbox console VR market is tiny, for now they can just continue to focus on PC VR/AR, and when the Xbox console market is ready they can pretty much just unlock VR hardware and software support for existing PC VR headsets even without releasing their own hardware if they so wish. It probably won't happen this generation though.

They haven't been supporting PC VR though even when it would cost them little to nothing to do it. Hellblade and Skyrim VR ‐ not on gamepass. Hitman trilogy, No man's sky, subnautica - the VR versions are on gamepass but you have to launch them with a headset connected and steamvr open to even know it. There isn't a way to even know what games on gamepass support VR other than lists on reddit etc.

 

[lukilladog]

Nobody said otherwise. Kinect was a gimmick. VR is a gimmick.
Not even Sony are taking VR seriously.

Do you really expect most people in the future will be using VR and looking like the drones in this room?....

God forbid if this happens.

Corporation human farming, lterally, fuck that.

 

[MarkMe2525]

I distinctly remember arguing with people that this was not coming to xbox one as a consumer product, they were adamant it was based on E3.

MS were all to happy to let vaporware hype overshadow real products by not mentioning this is not going to really be a consumer facing product any time soon. Only later when we learned about its cost did that become clear to some people. Unsurprisingly literally nobody was saying "why are they wasting resources on this" at the time.

Your anecdotal experiences of arguing with uninformed individuals have no bearing on your original claim that MS were bullshiting their customers.

Demonstrations of moonshot projects like these are something that used to be quite common in the tech industry. To have a take that it shouldn't be done is just baffling, and reason that companies no longer give us a look behind the curtains on their R&D projects. Regardless of market viability, this was a really cool demonstration (minecraft) and an awesome experience (halo demo).

 

[Wonko_C]

I personally think VR for gaming is much more appealing than AR. I mean who wants to see master chief coming out of my fridge and fighting aliens in my cramped house, when I could actually be inside the Halo world?

AR is better suited for Business/Education, communication, and the metaverse IMO.

 

[Three]

Your anecdotal experiences of arguing with uninformed individuals have no bearing on your original claim that MS were bullshiting their customers.

Demonstrations of moonshot projects like these are something that used to be quite common in the tech industry. To have a take that it shouldn't be done is just baffling, and reason that companies no longer give us a look behind the curtains on their R&D projects. Regardless of market viability, this was a really cool demonstration (minecraft) and an awesome experience (halo demo).

They have a big bearing because as usual MS were not being clear and the "uninformed people" believed it's coming to console being presented by the head of "Next gen experiences" and showing that at xbox E3 with that timing made little sense. I'll point you to what those who I was arguing with kept pointing to:

"If you've got more processing power locally, how they relay is clearly on the roadmap in a way easier than what we started with first, which is how to make this thing a dedicated device," - Phil Spencer head of xbox 2015.

https://www.polygon.com/2015/1/23/7...nto-how-the-hololens-could-work-with-pcs-xbox


How about:
"We have no plans to release this on xbox because we don't think a $3000 console peripheral is currently viable. This is just a concept of something we are working on at MS"

Easy. Instead you had arguments for days whether it was coming or not by the uninformed people.

You had threads like this about "Xbox One Streaming AR"

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/hololens-xbox-one-streaming-ar.1149021/

Nobody at MS cared to say it straight "This isn't for xbox one". Make it clear it's a moonshot project, make it clear it isn't for the xbox one when you show it. Don't tread the vapourware antitrust line.

 

[Dr. Wilkinson]

Yes. VR is still in its infancy. Let others battle it out and spend all the money on experimentation. Once the real hook for VR has been found, then jump in.

 

[MasterCornholio]

If Xbox supports VR headsets like the Oculus that's all they would need in my opinion. Can't be too difficult to do that and allow develops to make their games for it.

 

[MacReady13]

Because there would have been very little for them in return. Especially if they were not selling hardware either. Imagine not selling a VR headset to a fraction of a fraction of an install base. Let's say a fraction of the XB1 install base is XB1X (5M generous enough?) out there at the time. A fraction of that fraction buy a VR headset. Then a fraction of that fraction buys a game where you get 30%. They just didn't want to cater to a small audience with little return but they knew saying "no VR support" at the time where VR had the buzz and the competitor was showcasing it would not have gone down well. So they bullshitted people with XB1X and hololens.

Yeah but there is no outlay for a VR headset. Focus on the games and make money there.

 

[MasterCornholio]

OP

 

[Sosokrates]

I think VR will get really popular when you can scan your home and using procedural genreration along with other techniques it will play out its story in your home.

Probably about 20yrs off until thats feasible in a consumer unit.

 

[SLB1904]

this is the future of gaming.

 

[Dr. Wilkinson]

this is the future of gaming.

It’s a nifty concept, but not much beyond that.

In actuality, anything that requires users to be that physical will never really be a huge audience. Wii Sports was like, “barely swing your hand, or, turn your wrist.” Generally, and this goes for console as well as phone gaming, players want to be seated or laying down comfortably, manipulating inputs with just their fingers. Gaming, like reading a book, or watching TV or a movie, is popular because it’s a relaxing way to pass the time.

And regardless of how sophisticated some of these early VR game concepts get, you’ll never get past the reality that someone will always have to be physically moving around wearing a helmet, and because of that, I think the potential audience of VR in forms like this is pretty limited.

Xbox for sure is being very smart to not spend lots of R&D “figuring things out” with VR. If, and that’s a big if, VR ever becomes a dominant form of gaming, they’ll be able to move into it pretty easily. Or just acquire a company that’s seasoned and can do it for them.

 

[Goalus]

this is the future of gaming.

Wireless headsets that don't need an external processing box, yes.

 

[MarkMe2525]

They have a big bearing because as usual MS were not being clear and the "uninformed people" believed it's coming to console being presented by the head of "Next gen experiences" and showing that at xbox E3 with that timing made little sense. I'll point you to what those who I was arguing with kept pointing to:

"If you've got more processing power locally, how they relay is clearly on the roadmap in a way easier than what we started with first, which is how to make this thing a dedicated device," - Phil Spencer head of xbox 2015.

https://www.polygon.com/2015/1/23/7...nto-how-the-hololens-could-work-with-pcs-xbox


How about:
"We have no plans to release this on xbox because we don't think a $3000 console peripheral is currently viable. This is just a concept of something we are working on at MS"

Easy. Instead you had arguments for days whether it was coming or not by the uninformed people.

You had threads like this about "Xbox One Streaming AR"

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/hololens-xbox-one-streaming-ar.1149021/

Nobody at MS cared to say it straight "This isn't for xbox one". Make it clear it's a moonshot project, make it clear it isn't for the xbox one when you show it. Don't tread the vapourware antitrust line.

Very cheeky of you to leave out what he said at the start of the interview.
""We think it's important the thing succeeds as a stand-alone device," said Phil Spencer, head of Xbox. "I think the experiences you see today are all standalone. They're running in the device itself, which is really an accomplishment. There's no tether to something else, cause what you're going to see is fairly high fidelity experiences that I think will be impressive that it's running right here. We wanted to land that first."

To then say "Specific scenarios with the Xbox we're thinking hard about where people could ask about streaming solutions, use it as a display for my Xbox, we don't have answers for any of those things."

So again... in no way was MS bullshitting people. In fact, they were very specific and clear with what kind of ideas they were toying with, and the fact that they haven't made any decisions regarding those ideas.

Your claim is in bad faith and you are misrepresenting the interview just as much as the people you claim were arguing Phil said hololens was coming to xbox.

 

[nominedomine]

But if they ever decide to make a headset, it will be a, "OMG, we love VR now™" moment, here and across the twittardsphere.

We see it in this very thread how the same arguments used against VR are ignored when it comes to Cloud gaming.

Cloud gaming isn't setting the world on fire either and requires way more investment than offering VR support.

At least VR is awesome and has already resulted in plenty of great gaming experiences.

 

[Wonko_C]

I think VR will get really popular when you can scan your home and using procedural genreration along with other techniques it will play out its story in your home.

Probably about 20yrs off until thats feasible in a consumer unit.

Tea for God and other non-euclidean games kind of already do that (sans the scanning, it just uses your already-defined play space), and they can be played on a standalone Quest 2.

 

[SLB1904]

It's fine that they don't support it, and besides, Windows PCs have VR anyhow.

But if they ever decide to make a headset, it will be a, "OMG, we love VR now™" moment, here and across the twittardsphere.

yep ill bet my life savings on it

 

[Fbh]

Yeah I think right now what they have to focus is on is building a good "regular" library before they look into investing time and money on sideprojects.
Besides with the current economical climate IMO it makes more sense to continue building on the value of Gamepass instead of launching a $500 accessory for a $500 console.

 

[Umbasaborne]

Microsoft has much bigger problems to address with their first party. I am doubtful they'd be able to adequately support a VR platform. So from their perspective, it probably makes sense. You only have so many resources, and when you go years without major exclusives despite huge buying sprees you can't really manage to effectively support that platform.

I am just glad that we have someone like Sony that can step in and provide a superb platform with a multitude of support by some of their smaller devs and partners.

Yeah. I think phil knew at the time that they needed to get their first party games rolling out on a consistent basis, something they are still really struggling with, before they can focus on vr.

 

[MarkMe2525]

We see it in this very thread how the same arguments used against VR are ignored when it comes to Cloud gaming.

Cloud gaming isn't setting the world on fire either and requires way more investment than offering VR support.

At least VR is awesome and has already resulted in plenty of great gaming experiences.

Those cloud investments generate far reaching revenue streams outside of gaming so I don't think your comparison gives your argument any support. Also, me being able to play no man's sky on the bike at the gym is also pretty awesome.

 

[ZoukGalaxy]

No, they will try to catch up harder soon or later. VR is not the future, for now, but it will be definitively part of it. It's not a gimmick, people saying that never tried and it's absolutely NOT "like 3D" AT ALL.

 

[Three]

Very cheeky of you to leave out what he said at the start of the interview.
""We think it's important the thing succeeds as a stand-alone device," said Phil Spencer, head of Xbox. "I think the experiences you see today are all standalone. They're running in the device itself, which is really an accomplishment. There's no tether to something else, cause what you're going to see is fairly high fidelity experiences that I think will be impressive that it's running right here. We wanted to land that first."

To then say "Specific scenarios with the Xbox we're thinking hard about where people could ask about streaming solutions, use it as a display for my Xbox, we don't have answers for any of those things."

So again... in no way was MS bullshitting people. In fact, they were very specific and clear with what kind of ideas they were toying with, and the fact that they haven't made any decisions regarding those ideas.

Your claim is in bad faith and you are misrepresenting the interview just as much as the people you claim were arguing Phil said hololens was coming to xbox.

The reveal was in bad faith not my opinion of it. Clearly you don't see the main reason vaporware like that is shown at an xbox E3 event exactly when your competitor is showing a VR device peripheral releasing within the year.

An enterprise device didn't need a showing at an xbox focused E3 event just to see the moonshot project and you don't need to be baffled why some 'uninformed people' got the impression that it was coming to xbox one. A lot of people did, polygon, the verge, game informer and the countless people here I had to constantly argue with to tell them it wasn't coming when most people here (especially xbox fans) were adamant it was. It was deliberate and designed to be ambiguous. You think otherwise and that's fine too. Maybe to you it was obvious.

You don't need to try and convince me though that MS weren't bullshitting people but actually giving us some kind of privilege I should be grateful for because I don't believe that for a minute.

They always darted around the subject when asked directly because it was good PR to attach xbox one to that vaporware 'games' peripheral.

Game informer:
We asked Ronald about the likelihood of being able to plug a HoloLens device into an Xbox One in the future, and though there are no immediate plans, Ronald offered a vague, but optimistic answer. “I think we’re early in the days of HoloLens and how do we provide those great rich, experiences," Ronald said. "From my perspective, I think the future is wide open as we continue to innovate on the hardware and the sort of experiences we can deliver, I think there are all kinds of opportunities ahead of us.”

Do you honestly believe they thought that $3000 'standalone device' was in any way viable for xbox one?

A good faith answer would have been to tell it how it is. We don't see xbox one support happening within its lifetime, it's a standalone enterprise product mostly, but never say never.

Don't link the device to xbox with an xbox E3 show. It was misleading just watching that show alone. Even after reading up on it after the show the 'hope' was given in all the interviews for all that didn't know better. It's a $3000 device with no xbox games support. it was clear from the beginning it wasn't viable as VR/AR for xbox one but that didn't stop them from trying to pass it off with possible future support and do their damn best to associate this enterprise 'standalone device' with xbox though. It's not hard to guess why it was. You don't see it that way, but that's your opinion.

 

[DarkMage619]

This thread:

People with xbox say yes
People without xbox say no

As expected.

I actually like VR in small doses but I would rather MS focus on other things. When they start rolling out games on regular basis, they will probably turn their attention to it.

This pretty much sums it up. It's just a difference in philosophy. Just like how Sony doesn't want to copy Game pass MS doesn't want to copy others with VR. There is nothing wrong with that and at this point MS seems to be doing quite fine not being in the VR space on console. An interesting question is if Xbox suddenly announced VR would the people without Xbox rush out and buy one?