Microsoft held a big debut for its refreshed Xbox One console, the Xbox One X, at E3 yesterday, but there was one piece of the puzzle missing: VR support. We know the console will support VR at some point in 2018, so why not mention it at the show?
Head of Xbox Phil Spencer addressed that question in an interview with the BBC following yesterday’s conference.
“This show right here was about consoles, it was about great games, that’s what’s important to us,” Spencer said. “But we are believers in mixed reality, and mixed reality on the PC is something we’re focused on and building first-party games. Our mixed reality platform with our OEM partners continues to roll out and we’ll have more to talk about in the future.”
Mixed reality is the term Microsoft is using the refer to devices like the VR headsets its making in partnership with the likes of DELL and Acer all the way up to its own devices like HoloLens. The former are coming to PCs this year, but there’s no word on Xbox One X support just yet. In fact, Microsoft recently suggest that a VR headset for its new console would be wireless, and Spencer seemed to back that up.
“I don’t get many questions about console mixed reality in the living room, there are just issues with my TVs across the room, cables hanging out,” he said. “When I do this on my PC I’m closer to my PC, that seems to be a much more user friendly scenario today, but we’re all learning.”
Spencer continued, saying that the work Sony is doing with its PSVR is “great” as is Oculus and HTC’s work with their respective headsets. He added that it’s “early days” for the space and that right now the company wanted to make sure it was there to nurture developers on the windows side.
VR will likely still come to Xbox, then, but Microsoft’s messaging around that is, ironically, a little mixed right now.
