Xbox One gamers looking forward to playing virtual reality games with the Oculus Rift are in for a long wait: Microsoft has no plans on incorporating the Oculus Rift into Xbox One gameplay any time soon.
This comes as surprising news after reports came in that Microsoft spent so much time working with Oculus Rift, including supporting the VR headset for its game Minecraft. It's even more surprising, too, after Microsoft announced plans on shipping the retail version of Oculus Rift with an Xbox One controller, as well as allow Xbox One games to stream in VR on the system.
However, as to playing VR games on the Xbox One with Oculus Rift? Don't expect that to happen any time soon.
"It has been a conversation, but I can say we're not so close," said Oculus vice president Nate Mitchell to Polygon.
Instead, the company plans on focusing its VR endeavors with Microsoft on Windows. The retail version of Oculus Rift comes out next year, and Microsoft worked closely with Oculus in making sure that the headset is compatible with both Windows 10 and DirectX 12 on the day of its launch.
"Because of that, we've been laser focused on getting Windows in awesome shape," said Mitchell. "No one is really thinking right now about bringing the Rift to a console, especially when the spec is so different from what we're targeting right now."
Of course, Sony plans on doing just that: bringing VR to a console with its PlayStation VR. Of course, Sony doesn't yet have a release date about when the headset will become available to the public, but it seems that the company still has a jump on Microsoft, its main competitor in the console market.
Meanwhile, Samsung's Gear VR hits stores this fall, at a price that's probably considerably less than either the Oculus Rift or PlayStation VR (both are rumored to have a final price of at least several hundreds of dollars). The Samsung Gear VR headset will work with all of Samsung's 2015 smartphones.
Of course, it's likely that eventually, Microsoft will focus its efforts with the Oculus Rift on Xbox One, but the key takeaway with Oculus' current perspective is that this won't happen as soon as Xbox One players would probably like. Mitchell did state that the Xbox One has the right specs to "deliver a great VR experience," but that it just isn't what the company plans on working on now.
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