Support NeoGAF

[LavitzSlambert]

Microsoft's strategy is subscription and platform. There isn't a large incentive for them to lead the charge into VR, it's very expensive for a limited audience. When your platform is in 3rd place that is not the time to be doubling down on a niche audience, unless you like burning money. I agree Microsoft's efforts need to go into making Xbox/Game Pass a competitive and profitable product first, worrying about VR later.

 

[Godot25]

It’ll sell less millions than Quest 2. Quote me and throw this in my face in a year if I’m wrong.
There is no hype.

Yeah. Same for PSVR2. Yeah. It sold fine during launch but you can already see that curve flattens in comparison to PSVR sales. Even Sony admitted that they would be fine if VR2 sell as much as PSVR. Which is bad for "rapidly growing market" that some analysts predicted.

 

[Pasta la Vista]

MS has bigger plans. Kinect is coming back baby!

 

[Fredrik]

Yeah. Same for PSVR2. Yeah. It sold fine during launch but you can already see that curve flattens in comparison to PSVR sales. Even Sony admitted that they would be fine if VR2 sell as much as PSVR. Which is bad for "rapidly growing market" that some analysts predicted.

Not sure how much of a problem it is but PSVR2 is $700 at my area. I don’t know a single person that has one or has even tried one.
And everybody I know that have a Quest 2 has stopped using it, long ago. Nobody is talking about Quest 3.
I know one person who use an Index, he’s a big VR fan, have some kind of VR studio whatever that is, said he would’ve bought an Apple Vision Pro day 1 if it was SteamVR compatible, but it isn’t so.
And big devs are still not releasing any high budget dedicated VR games, best case scenario is VR modes.

I love VR btw. But the future is looking grim right now imo. Maybe we’ll see a AR boost once Apple Vision Pro is out, but unless they release a minimum $600 headset within a year it’ll at best carve out a tiny market among diehard Apple fans.

 

[Nico_D]

Just buy Vive already MS. You want to.

 

[EverydayBeast]

Sony is thrilled to be making vr a legitimate gaming periferal.

 

[A.Romero]

I mean, of course it is a small market now. It might never pan out but if it does...

Gaming was not what it is before the first playstation came out. Microsoft joined later on and it has been an uphill battle since then.

The Wii's market was not identified until after the device was released. Nobody has been able to tap into it again.

Back when every music label was scrambling to stop digital distribution someone thought it was best to actually leverage the trend. We know what happened afterwards.

Innovation and leading markets is about taking risky bets. Most of them don't pan out but when they do it's all worth it.

Personally, I do think VR, AR and all of that is the future.

 

[splattered]

When the vr market does get big, sony will have a matured platform on their hands at the ready, and companies experienced with vr games.

Oh you mean in like 10 years? The CMA might want to investigate this then and shut them down so they don't maybe one day become a VR monopoly or something

 

[xrnzaaas]

Translation: we have enough problems at the moment and could not support a VR platform

Very disappointing, Starfield would be an awesome VR title

Look how late Skyrim was given a VR version. If the VR market grows they can still do that several years from now.

Pulling resources to make a separate version for launch day would be a mistake. We all know they need to make Starfield's launch as smooth as possible to finally have a good exclusive title.

 

[Syphon Filter]

If there is one right thing xbox is doing, it's ignoring the fad that is VR.

 

[IntentionalPun]

I really just don't think VR will be huge for a very, very long time.

If ever.

Quest 2 sold 20 million or so, but Meta themselves said it's a fad for a lot of people. That's a problem for devices like this in general. To make money you need to sell a lot of software.

Super curious how Quest 3 will do, with it's higher price. It's crazy they are jumping up into the $500 territory, but they need to stop heavily subsidizing the damn things at some point.

 

[Shubh_C63]

So Xbox just don't want to shepherd anything. They just want to Chase.

Said so themselves. wow

 

[Solidsnake_1]

When the vr market does get big, sony will have a matured platform on their hands at the ready, and companies experienced with vr games.

NP they will just buy a already successful vr company .

 

[avin]

I'm fairly confident Starfield will get VR support down the road, just like MSFS did. It'll just be on PC. It's what PC still does best, which is accommodate smaller niche choices.

avin

 

[Reallink]

When the vr market does get big, sony will have a matured platform on their hands at the ready, and companies experienced with vr games.

Sony's studios don't have any experience in VR either. Asobi and the small likely now departed team at London were their only real internal experience (London has now abandoned VR and moved onto their own GaaS). Everything else has been farmed out to third parties, or new acquisitions (Firesprite), a tactic MS has way more money to finance than Sony. Bethesda for example has more VR experience than Sony's real first party studios.

 

[ShaiKhulud1989]

I really just don't think VR will be huge for a very, very long time.

It doesn't need to be huge or even that big. It's a long game and companies like Apple or Sony are perfectly content with that. They have a lot of other revenue streams to back VR/AR ambitions up. In gaming, VR is an accessory, like a racing wheel or a joystick (PSVR2 is cheaper than a lot of HOTAS/DD setups). Will it kill someone to support it even through a third-party? Moreover, Sony sells a lot of it's VR tech to other vendors and industries, including automotive and Apple Vision Pro that basically uses the same PSVR 2 eye-tracking package.

Console VR doesn't need to be huge to be successful and interesting, but the lack of it could kill an entire genre on your platform (racing). Thruth is, Xbox have it's own issues and considering the huge Hololens/Windows MR flop Microsoft is not eager to drag this any longer despite the growing interest in this niche from players like Apple. And Xbox Series simply cannot take VR helmets due to restricted USBs, so no future-proofing for that box.

 

[ZoukGalaxy]

Here some balls for you Phil.

If everybody thinks like you, it will never grow for sure. Thanks to SONY and all others PC actors to have actually balls to make it happen.

With all that money, Microsoft should be the one taking risks, that's absolutely paradoxal.

 

[IntentionalPun]

It doesn't need to be huge or even that big.

To justify the investment companies are putting into it, yes it needs to be big eventually.

Sony isn't investing in VR because they think it will be some small market. There's nobody investing in VR who thinks that.

Either way just providing my opinion.. I don't think the VR market will be very large for a very long time, certainly not large in this era of devices.

 

[onnextflix5]

at this point , might be a good idea to get quest to make for one for Xbox and pc, but obviously quest would want a cut, maybe get a third party to make one, like the pico team, maybe.

 

[ShaiKhulud1989]

To justify the investment companies are putting into it, yes it needs to be big eventually.

A lot of VR patents and breakhroughs are re-applied elsewhere. It's a good thing that device-driven companies are not narrow-minded.

 

[Drew1440]

Even if they wanted to go into VR, they pretty much hamstrung themselves this gen by making the Series S that weak. That will struggle with high end VR, and devs aren’t allowed to make XSX exclusive games.

Should have been a 6TF minimum console.

The audience that brought the Series S are very unlikely to be interested in VR regardless.

 

[Ozriel]

Well, it's larger than Xbox Series if we combine Oculus and Sony, so okay, Matt.

Nah.

Too bad that Forza will be basically castrated as a racer because of this choice.

Most people don’t buy racers for a VR mode.

And Apple seems so 'stupid' too .

Apple isn't focused on gaming as the primary use case for their VisionPro.

Guess they will just buy their way into it when they are ready.

They innovated already in the AR/VR space with WMR headsets and Hololens. They really don’t need to buy their way into VR. Third party devs are desperately looking for more platforms to help their profitability, and multiple xbox first party studios already have experience with VR.

The audience that brought the Series S are very unlikely to be interested in VR regardless.

And yet it’d still result in MS breaking their most sacrosanct promise for the xbox series line…no Series X exclusives.

 

[Fabieter]

When the vr market does get big, sony will have a matured platform on their hands at the ready, and companies experienced with vr games.

If it gets indeed as big as we hope it will than meta is probably get bought by Microsoft.

 

[Ozriel]

It’ll sell less millions than Quest 2. Quote me and throw this in my face in a year if I’m wrong.
There is no hype.

You’re absolutely right that it’s Likely it’ll sell worse than Quest 2. The casual audience can happily keep playing beat saber on their Quest 2, and Q3 is quite the price hike at $500

Hype cycle isn’t there yet, but you’ll still get a certain amount of folks upgrading from the Quest 2 for the significant spec bump.

 

[ShaiKhulud1989]

Before I leave this thread for good, may I remind you that we're more than 10 years into the 'VR IS DEAD AND OVERHYPED' discussion.

But ok, I guess.

 

[IntentionalPun]

A lot of VR patents and breakhroughs are re-applied elsewhere. It's a good thing that device-driven companies are not narrow-minded.

I mean sure, there are cameras, sensors, etc. I almost brought that up in terms of it making more sense for Sony as a hardware company. But a LOT of that would be to develop hardware for other VR companies lol

Either way I'm talking about the market for VR gaming. I don't think it will be very big for a long, long time... that's it, that's my opinion.

I would rather MS invest in VR than not though.. I haven't ordered PSVR2 yet but will, and own an Index. None of that changes my mind that I don't think it'll ever grow to sustain large software ecosystems, not until there are big breaks in techs like batteries and materials at the very least.. but there's still no guarantee the public wants to spend time engrossed in VR en masse. It has yet to be proven.

 

[poppabk]

This is great news for VR. MS has a terrible track record for picking the winners in emergent technologies - don't think they have got one right since they went after browsers, where they still flubbed by not realizing that the search engines were the important part. They missed phones, bet on consoles being a PC replacement, missed streaming content, bet on messenger apps etc etc.

 

[Ar¢tos]

To justify the investment companies are putting into it, yes it needs to be big eventually.

Sony isn't investing in VR because they think it will be some small market. There's nobody investing in VR who thinks that.

Either way just providing my opinion.. I don't think the VR market will be very large for a very long time, certainly not large in this era of devices.

The investment for Sony isn't that big, they have a huge Image & Sensors department so most of the R&D and manufacturing is internal, and as someone else said, a lot of the new tech developed for VR ends up finding use somewhere else. As long as they make a small profit with each unit and game sold it is worth it for them, even if it doesn't sell like crazy.

 

[FalsettoVibe]

Maybe true but you have to start somewhere. Better try now than playing catch-up if the market really catches on later.

 

[fermcr]

He's right. VR is a niche product, not worth wasting time and resources.
If Sony's PS VR2 was a success, they would have announce sales from the top of their lungs.

 

[Azelover]

Didn't stop them from starting Xbox Live as a broadband exclusive in 2002.

They don't believe in the technology.

 

[DeepEnigma]

He's right. VR is a niche product, not worth wasting time and resources.
If Sony's PS VR2 was a success, they would have announce sales from the top of their lungs.

They did. At their earnings.

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

Correct. VR is lame

Agreed.

 

[fermcr]

They did. At their earnings.

Hum... is it a success?

 

[fermcr]

Hey Phil

Why do you care if Microsoft invests in VR or not? You don't have an Xbox.

 

[IntentionalPun]

The investment for Sony isn't that big, they have a huge Image & Sensors department so most of the R&D and manufacturing is internal, and as someone else said, a lot of the new tech developed for VR ends up finding use somewhere else. As long as they make a small profit with each unit and game sold it is worth it for them, even if it doesn't sell like crazy.

I'm not saying it will be a disaster for Sony.

For Meta though? They've dumped like $30 billion into VR and lost many billions on it.

Sony is a much smarter company.

Either way sort of beside my point.. which is about the VR gaming market lol

They did. At their earnings.

They sort of did.

 

[Ar¢tos]

He's right. VR is a niche product, not worth wasting time and resources.
If Sony's PS VR2 was a success, they would have announce sales from the top of their lungs.

It doesn't need to be a success to be profitable.
Look at Xbox series...

 

[graywolf323]

Translation: we have enough problems at the moment and could not support a VR platform

Very disappointing, Starfield would be an awesome VR title

honestly one of the biggest disappointments to me with Xbox having acquired Bethesda is there seems to be no intention to make PSVR2 versions of their PSVR games

imagine Skyrim on PSVR2, it’d be pretty cool (also PSVR never did get Fallout 4 VR)

Starfield would have been awesome to play like that

 

[DeepEnigma]

Hum... is it a success?

They seem to be happy with it. Tracking better than their PSVR, launched in a non-holiday season when it was only available at Sony Direct online. More and more games are announced each week.

 

[systemr123]

Microsoft's strategy is subscription and platform. There isn't a large incentive for them to lead the charge into VR, it's very expensive for a limited audience. When your platform is in 3rd place that is not the time to be doubling down on a niche audience, unless you like burning money. I agree Microsoft's efforts need to go into making Xbox/Game Pass a competitive and profitable product first, worrying about VR later.

If Microsoft’s strategy is subscription and platform maybe they should just abandon the whole Xbox initiative and go for that instead. Maybe they’ll actually sell some more games publishing to Sony consoles .

 

[systemr123]

MS don’t need games on their games console, Phil said great games are useless .

 

[DeepEnigma]

Why do you care if Microsoft invests in VR or not? You don't have an Xbox.

Because Forza is flat without VR.

And PC modding VR into flat racing games, while neat and not issue free, pales compared to a ground up build.

 

[fermcr]

It doesn't need to be a success to be profitable.
Look at Xbox series...

You are contraindicating yourself.

If the Xbox series is profitable, then it's a success. It doesn't need to sell as much as the PS5 to be successful.

 

[fred420170]

He's not wrong.

They did roll out Hololens to the US military but pulled it due to soldiers getting motion sickness and headaches. It's just not ready yet and they are smart not to pursue it for now.

 

[X-Wing]

Why bother, when it becomes big they can just whine that they can’t compete and beg regulators to allow them to buy one or another major player.

 

[Buggy Loop]

I mean, it's accurate. It's niche. To have an "excellent" experience now it makes for an expensive product. Meta threw billions on it, barely got much to show for it. Quest 2 being the best selling headset by far by having impulse buy pricing during a pandemic, but how many will return for say, Quest 3?

I expect a drastic sales difference between Quest 3 vs Quest 2, i would expect half honestly.

I think Apple has a chance to break this cycle in 2nd or 3rd iteration of Vision when it falls back to iPhone like prices. Then you'll see plenty of big companies jumping in. That's years away.

 

[Laptop1991]

High cost entry point still for the headset, especially on PC, not enough top games and is still niche really, even after Half Life Alex, Skyrim and Fallout 4, i'm actually going to agree with Xbox for once, doesn't happen often.

 

[Vasto]

He is right.

 

[hyperbertha]

When the market does get big



It will get as big as 3D TVs are now.

Imagine revealing yourself to be an absolute clown and then posting gifs confidently.

 

[feynoob]

Why do you care if Microsoft invests in VR or not? You don't have an Xbox.

If MS sells zenimax, then I won't have any business with them.