Microsoft won't invest in VR gaming anytime soon, here is why
After recently revealing a bunch of new details about upcoming games from its first-party studios, Microsoft is now fully focused on trying to close the Activision Blizzard acquisition deal. A positive or negative outcome of the deal would mean a lot not just for the companies, but for the players as well.
One of the reasons that UK regulators and FCC blocked the acquisition is cloud gaming. While EU proposed Microsoft to sign 10-year licensing deals to competitors, which will allow players in the EU to stream games via “any cloud game streaming services of their choice,” UK regulators and FCC didn’t budge even after Microsoft announced deals with NVIDIA and other companies that provide streaming services.
In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Microsoft’s head of gaming division, Matt Booty, offered his perspective over cloud gaming, as well as AR and VR. As many of you probably know by now, Microsoft did not announce a VR headset like Sony did when it introduced the PlayStation 5.
Not only that but Microsoft didn’t show any VR games from its first-party studios in the last few years. According to Matt Booty, the reason for Microsoft not actively investing in VR gaming is because the market is too small for the moment.
On other hand, Mr. Booty revealed that Microsoft doesn’t have the same approach toward cloud gaming. Despite the market being very small, the Redmond-based company is actively investing in cloud gaming.
One thing is certain though: content is king. If there were no games for cloud gaming or VR, there wouldn’t be streaming services like NVIDIA’s GeForce NOW nor VR headsets. It appears that Microsoft is focusing on content, just not on VR content.
Not only that but Microsoft didn’t show any VR games from its first-party studios in the last few years. According to Matt Booty, the reason for Microsoft not actively investing in VR gaming is because the market is too small for the moment.
I think for us, it’s just a bit of wait until there’s an audience there. We’re very fortunate that we have got these big IPs that have turned into ongoing franchises with big communities. We have 10 games that have achieved over 10 million players life-to-date, which is a pretty big accomplishment, but that’s the kind of scale that we need to see success for the game and it’s just, it’s not quite there yet with AR, VR.
We’ve got 150 million active players across first-party [games] every month. It’s just not even at that scale. So for us, it’s something that we consider almost more experimental that we’re trying out to see how it works. We just announced it. We’ve signed some great partnerships with NVIDIA and announced some other partnerships. So for us, it comes back to the content, which is really my focus.
One thing is certain though: content is king. If there were no games for cloud gaming or VR, there wouldn’t be streaming services like NVIDIA’s GeForce NOW nor VR headsets. It appears that Microsoft is focusing on content, just not on VR content.
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