It has been nearly five years since Sony dipped its toes into the Virtual Reality scene with the release of PSVR, while Microsoft has claimed that “nobody is asking for VR” and has not added support for any VR systems. The tech giant has updated its position on the subject in response to a bug that suggested VR support was on the way for Xbox consoles.
Xbox recently released a new wireless headset that was secretly in an Xbox trailer months ago. This headset has a few neat quality-of-life tricks, including connecting to multiple devices via Bluetooth, and is comparable to PlayStation’s Pulse Headset. While trying to connect the headset to a console, a team of journalists in Italy received an interesting message they didn’t expect.
An error message reported that “the VR headset needs to be updated.” Further references to VR suggested that Xbox has been working on unannounced support for virtual reality headsets, and many fans started to get their hopes up. To the dismay of VR enthusiasts, Microsoft was quick to shut down the rumors. Xbox Public Relations released a simple statement: “The copy in this error message is inaccurate due to a localization bug. VR for console is not a focus for us at this time.”
This falls in line with previous statements from Microsoft on the VR issue. The sentiment of “nobody is asking for VR” is a curious one, since Microsoft’s chief competitor Sony has been successfully selling millions of VR headsets. Only a year after release, PSVR sales rose above 2 million units, and have only continued to rise over the years. It appears that Sony will continue to be uncontested in the console VR space, at least for the time being.
Though virtual reality continues to have a largely niche appeal, 2020 was a fantastic year for fans of the platform. Despite the pandemic and working from home, developers have delivered excellent VR titles like Half-Life Alyx, Star Wars: Squadrons, and The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners. While the industry continues to debates whether VR will ever go mainstream, there is no shortage of great games to jump into.
All this makes Microsoft’s stance on console VR all the stranger. The company clearly sees the appeal of virtual reality, as full VR support for Microsoft Flight Simulator has recently been patched into the game. Xbox remains on the sidelines in the console VR space for the moment while PSVR remains the sole competitor. The new generation is just getting started, however, and Xbox has maintained future VR support as a possibility.
Source: IGN Italy