VR “Not Where Our Focus Is” - Spencer

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Sep 11, 2013
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“I have some issues with VR — it’s isolating and I think of games as a communal, kind of together experience. We’re responding to what our customers are asking for and…nobody’s asking for VR,” Spencer said. “The vast majority of our customers know if they want a VR experience, there’s places to go get those. We see the volumes of those on PC and other places.”

Spencer admitted that some of the decision was based on cold hard cash, as “nobody’s selling millions and millions” of VR units.

“I think we might get there [eventually],” Spencer concluded. “But yeah, that’s not where our focus is.”
 
I don't blame them one bit, let everyone else do the field testing and see how much of a market there really is. I disagree about games being a together experience, that is more of a MP gamer mindset and that's not me.
 
I saw the Valve Index is #1 on steam, its outselling everything in all categories.

I don't think the Half Life announcement hurt VR. It was already having it's best year ever by far, even before the announcement.
 
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I know for me personally, VR just makes my stomach upset. I've tried to work around it, but ultimately I struggle to play for more than 10-20 minutes. What's weird is I get no motion sickness from anything else. I know it doesn't impact everyone, but I know it isn't just me.

My other constraint is space. I have lower ceilings and any games that involve a lot of motion are a non-starter for me, so I miss out on great games like Beat Saber. I mean I'm 6 feet tall with long arms, so I'd basically need a custom build house to use it properly.
 
I am glad that they are not focused on VR, as I have it and I find it a fad and it is collecting dust. THAT SAID, we have same great friends on this site that do enjoy VR, and I know they would like to see it come to Xbox. I wish for their sake, they could bring them some VR love to Xbox.

Why can't they just add an Oculus Rift driver to the Xbox to support it, and then those devs that want to bring VR to Xbox can. This way MS doesn't have to focus on it at all.
 
I am glad that they are not focused on VR, as I have it and I find it a fad and it is collecting dust. THAT SAID, we have same great friends on this site that do enjoy VR, and I know they would like to see it come to Xbox. I wish for their sake, they could bring them some VR love to Xbox.

Why can't they just add an Oculus Rift driver to the Xbox to support it, and then those devs that want to bring VR to Xbox can. This way MS doesn't have to focus on it at all.
That's exactly what I was thinking. Just support it and get ports...
 
Spencer admitted that some of the decision was based on cold hard cash, as “nobody’s selling millions and millions” of VR
Gaming itself was not always mainstream. It took a few bold companies to believe in, and support it back then.
 
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I saw the Valve Index is #1 on steam, its outselling everything in all categories.

I don't think the Half Life announcement hurt VR. It was already having it's best year ever by far, even before the announcement.
The Half-Life: Alyx reveal video is at just about 8M views right now. Maybe it'll solve the software shortage conundrum that will ultimately sell more headsets.
 
If MS doesn't touch VR - gamers - "Why don't you innovate more!"
If MS does VR - gamers - "You should focus on traditional games first!"
 
The only studio I belive with interest in VR from MS would be Ninja Theory, kinda feel they may have been working on one once.

If Nintendo made a Mario or Zelda game in VR than the world may take noticed.
 
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I actually just LOL'd at my comment here seeing as I just bought a PS VR (it was more of for my girlfriend and her neices though). I still stand by my statement though as an every day gamer there is 0 way I would want to be wearing a headset to play my games.
 


SONY is usually copying the competition. Nintendo, SEGA, and Microsoft. They chase the competition with console features. VR is their one standout move and it hasn't taken off with the mainstream. Plus, it uses those terrible Move controllers.
 
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What I think:

Oddly, I find Yoshida's comment a very "Phil Spencer" thing to say, if you know what I mean.

I also find Phil Spencer's statement about it not being their focus for Scarlett, a little annoying, and too diplomatic. His whole stance on VR has seemed so incredibly schizophrenic since the Scorpio announcement, that it kind of changes my view of who he is as a person. I know that this will bother some Xbox fans and VR haters, but if he just said that he wasn't into VR, and didn't think it would be right for Xbox, fine! He did announce VR at the Scorpio reveal, though. He's also stated that "when the tech is there", OK. Fine, but now he keeps saying that PC is the place for VR, when clearly, Oculus Quest has shown that you do not even need a PC, which fewer and fewer people even have these days. I wonder how many VR holdouts are on Xbox, and if they are in fact, waiting for Xbox to do it, and do it right! At some point you have to just MAN-UP one way or the other! What the hell does "not our focus" even mean? He seems to need a backbone sometimes. I totally get that AAA is the prize to keep the eye on, but we are talking about a... $Trillion company in Microsoft these days! Daum! That amount of money can absolutely handle some risks without a scratch!

There are also rumours of Apple having an AR/VR headset launching next year. This headset is now rumored to be co-developed with Valve. Hololens has a strong Mixed Reality lead, with H2 just launching, but this is for enterprise. They are still behind for consumer headsets, and WMR is WAY behind, with no announcement of a WMR 2.0 anywhere to be found. It begs the question: are they actually gonna pull a "Microsoft", and abandon the WMR program? This, at a time when Oculus/Facebook is going all-in on Rift S and Quest (now with PC link), and Valve going full-steam (sorry) with Index and HL:A? Seems to be a really dumb time to waiver on your focus on mixed really. It's clearly only beginning!
 
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Also, this was retweeted last week. Talk about the right hand and left hand at MSFT not being in sync:

 
If Phil Spencer’s felt the market was there in the console space for VR then Xbox would be there. Instead VR has not grown in the consumer space like most projections and Hololens is focused on enterprise.
 
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If Phil Spencer’s felt the market was there in the console space for VR then Xbox would be there. Instead VR has not grown in the consumer space like most projections and Hololens is focused on enterprise.
There can't be a market for something if you don't release anything to market... Actually, by just allowing Oculus support, they would already have a really huge install base. Where are these magic numbers of no market for console VR coming from? We already have Sony with PoSVR, and 4million, and many more selling this month.... and that's for shoddy 1080p/last-gen Move controllers! Xbox could do much better, and there's definitely a market for it when many people already own the hardware (Oculus, WMR, Vive, Index). Any and all of these headsets can work with the same software on PC... Even if they just went with Quest exclusively, they'd have a huge hit on their hands!
 
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