Xbox’s Phil Spencer Hopes VR Gets Bigger, Currently not Part of Xbox Series X Plan
Suffice it to say that Xbox definitely doesn’t have any plans to support virtual reality (VR) on the Xbox Series X and compete with PlayStation. Having made some inflammatory comments last year, head of Xbox Phil Spencer has once again addressed the subject, stipulating that while there are ‘great VR titles’, when it comes to the launch of the next-generation Xbox VR isn’t a consideration.
Spencer was taking part in Gamertag Radio’s 1000th episode, to discuss the past, present and future of Xbox and naturally VR came up. While positive about VR, the content being produced and not trying to detract from the work being done, he wanted to make sure customers weren’t going to buy the upcoming Xbox Series X in the hope of VR.
Starting with the initial reaction to his previous statement from 2019 Spencer said: “I probably overstated and I wasn’t trying to take [anything away] from people who love VR and the experiences that are being built, no disrespect to any of the teams there. Ryan Payton, a good friend of mine, he’s getting ready to ship Iron Man VR. And you know, there’s a lot of people I know that are working on some good VR titles, great VR titles, and I’m not trying to not be supportive of that to use a double negative.
“But my main point was, I wanted to be clear with our customers on where our focus was so that if somebody was waiting for us to bring out a VR headset for Series X at the launch or something I was just trying to [say] we’re not going to do that. I understand certain people would want that, we have to focus our efforts on the things that we’re doing right now. And the most precious resource that we have is the team and their ability and I just have to focus on the things we’re doing right now.”
“VR is not just as simple as plugging your headset, you have to redo the dash, like there’s a bunch of work that goes into it. And the teams at Valve, the teams at Sony, the teams at Oculus that are doing that work, they know the completeness and what it means to support that platform,” Spencer continues.
“Obviously, VR is big on Windows today, we are the Windows company and we’re never going to close our eyes to where things are going. So I’m not trying to say I don’t hope it goes away, I hope it gets bigger, I hope it’s something that’s just so important that there would be no brainer for us to support it. My main point in that statement wasn’t to chide anybody who’s working on VR, anything but really just about the stuff that we’re focused on right now. And that’s not part of the equation, right now.”
So there you have it, no VR on Xbox. For the time being at any rate. Should VR become popular enough for Xbox to consider the technology VRFocus will let you know.
https://www.vrfocus.com/2020/02/xboxs-phil-spencer-hopes-vr-gets-bigger-currently-not-part-of-xbox-series-x-plan/
