Xbox Doesn't Want To Go Down The PlayStation VR Route, Suggests Phil Spencer

I'd want an Xbox VR headset that's standalone and not just WMR that's green and white. Ideally, if they could work together, Xbox and Valve should make a headset people can afford and both make games for it. I think that's the only way anyone competes with Oculus and PSVR.

He has a dream of Kinect VR experience.

Having just tried streaming from my Series X to my old Surface Pro for the first time yesterday, I was impressed how well that worked. I'd think a VR game running on the console but streaming to the headset would work pretty slick.

@Generik Oculus Quest 2 can stream via wi-fi from your PC to the headset and it works pretty well.

Same technology could easily be used to stream from an XSX/XSS to an Oculus Quest 2 (or a MS headset) and play VR games.

My guess is VR just isn't mainstream enough for MS to look deep into it. The Oculus Quest is probably the first VR headset I would say might be used by non-enthusiasts, due to being cheaper and requiring virtually no setup (and little space).

I'd love a VR headset for Microsoft Flight Simulator on Series X, alas it doesn't seem like the Xbox team are interested for this console generation sadly.

@Generik: I had a similar experience streaming Wasteland 3 from the series X in my home to the desktop PC in my office. It worked remarkably well, considering the distance (~3 miles).

If they could pull off an oculus quest 2 type device with xcloud capability as well as being able to run through the Series, now that could be something special and something I could jump on board with.

@uptownsoul not if the headset itself could handle xcloud.

@TheOGChemperor That's great to know. I'm going to be travelling out of town next week and may see if I can get this to work in the hotel. 😁

Only streaming via LAN like the Vive does would make sense. And Wi-Fi is the bane of my existence, so I do not exactly find the tech to be reliable. Edit: But maybe it would work. I never tried the Vive wireless.

@uptownsoul That's likely the main hold up for it not happening yet. However, they already have wifi vr streaming from pc to headset and it works. So, it may not be far off as xCloud improves.

Overall it was a good interview with Phil on kinda funny. It's just 55min and shorter once you skip the adds in there so give it a go.

Maybe a couple of years down the line you could have a tech that could actually wirelessly stream from your local console to your headset with great image quality and frame rate.

I bought a Quest 2 and it had the most terrible display quality and resolution I've seen on a display, ever. Defective? Maybe, but after a couple weeks of troubleshooting and not getting any results I returned it.

@uptownsoul They just need to maintain 90fps. And parts of it can also be rendered on-device.

I can agree with this. As much as I think VR is very cool, it is a bit of a gimmick. I paid full price for the PSVR which I used a small handful of times for maybe one or two games.

If I were to use VR for anything, it’d 100% be for MSFS.

@uptownsoul “and outside of PC & Xbox consoles, nothing else can render anything on-device”

That’s not a good assumption. Wait for Apple VR and next iterations of Hololens.

@uptownsoul I think you are making a lot of assumptions of Microsoft's plans and taking their "publicly stated" business strategy and acting like that now has to be their total strategy forever. There can always more behind the curtain and there's no reason Microsoft can't decide to jump into VR when they want to. From what Phil is saying in the interview, it seems like they are currently focused on that infrastructure of xCloud streaming. After they can get that running well, he may consider VR. Hence the "second step". I think they wisely see VR as more of a novelty at this moment and not really mainstream at all. The technology is still in its infancy and needs more work, as well as more mainstream games like Half-life Alyx.

VR is still just a novelty experience and Phil Spencer knows that, hence he says they are watching everything unfold on Windows.

He also hits the nail on the head by hinting the worst thing you can do is lock an expensive device like a VR headset to a console, hence him mentioning Oculus Quest 2 as something they could potentially use with xCloud, meaning no console involved.

@uptownsoul I don't even know what you are arguing anymore... Your last comment to me and Senua are points that are obvious and no one is arguing against. Ok, Xbox wants their games to play across devices. Ok, that's why they push xCloud to make phones and tablets capable to play AAA games. Zero people are disputing that lol!
And the correlation that has towards potential future VR being added to Xbox, whether with native and/or xCloud capability? None!

Look at Microsoft Mesh or Hololens, that would be the closest since they're working together with other MS departments & can leverage their cloud capabilities

VR is not mainstream and never will be. They'd never make their money back on it at this point.

Everything he said about VR systems and the Quest 2 could be applied just as easily to the bog-standard wireless Xbox controller as it could to a theoretical VR headset, with implications that would be interesting if they weren't already pretty much old news anyway.

I’m fine using the Quest 2 for my VR. I prefer their resources are used to continue to bolster Gamepass. 3rd/2nd party partnerships and studio acquisitions definitely sound better than moving their studios’ resources to developing VR software.

I mean they could always make a exclusive deal with oculus with one of the games like HALO.

@uptownsoul I’m more talking about the headset itself and only a part of the rendering.

I've said it a few thouasand times but I'll say it again, just let us plug any third party "inside out tracking" headset (like the Quests) into the Xbox, and let companies release VR title on the Xbox store. That'll negate most of the risk for MS. I don't need MS to come to VR "guns blazing" with their own hardware and games, though they do own a few now, let the players show if VR on Xbox is something we'll use.

@uptownsoul There's still experiences that are exclusive to 1 part of the platform though like the Age of Empires franchise is still fully exclusive to PC even in the case of the upcoming entry. If Microsoft is to truly have Xbox as a proper platform across multiple devices, stuff like PC exclusivity needs to end.

I think i speak for 95% of people when i say VR can go to hell..