Xbox will look at VR more seriously when “there’s an audience there”

Unlike game station, xbox It hasn’t made any concrete moves into the VR space, and apparently that’s because it doesn’t think the audience is there yet.

There’s a bit of debate about just how successful VR is or isn’t right now, and it sounds like Xbox might be a bit on the fence about that as well. In a recent interview with the hollywood reporter, Xbox Game Studios boss Matt Booty shared his thoughts on virtual reality and the way Xbox is approaching the medium. “I think for us, it’s just a little bit of a wait until there’s an audience there,” Booty said. “We are very lucky to have these great IPs that have grown into ongoing franchises with great communities.

“We have 10 games that have achieved over 10 million players to date, which is a huge achievement, but that’s the kind of scale we need to see game success and it just hasn’t come with augmented reality yet. , virtual reality”. From the sounds of it, Microsoft is looking for that huge player base to be achieved with a VR or AR title before it moves into space.

According to a report from the edge Earlier this year, Meta Quest 2 had apparently sold around 20 million units at the time, so with such a small user base, there’s not much room for a game to have anywhere near 10 million players. While we don’t have figures since then, Sony shared in May that the PSVR2 sold around 600,000 units during its first six weeks on sale, and predictions that it will outsell Sony’s first headset (the original PSVR sold five million units by the end of 2019).

Xbox boss Phil Spencer said in 2019 that Xbox gamers weren’t asking for VR, though he later expressed hope that the company would support it at some point. As we’re a few years after those comments, I wouldn’t hold my breath for an Xbox VR headset (they should call it Xbox 360 for the fun of it, though).