Will Apple and Sony’s partnership on integrating PlayStation VR2’s hand controllers with the Vision Pro amount to great leaps forward for gamers?
That is the question.
Apple has tipped so much money into the Vision Pro headset – launched in June 2023 as a “revolutionary spatial computer that seamlessly blends digital content with the physical world, while allowing users to stay present and connected to others” – that it would like to see some sort of return.
But the headset with the big insect ski goggle eyes, which starts at $6,000 in Australia, reportedly hasn’t taken off as the maker may have hoped.
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reckons that “Apple should have made gaming a priority by creating its own hand controllers and building a service specifically for the device. It also could have helped fund the development of big-budget games — the kind of ‘AAA’-level titles that entice an audience”.
It didn’t, focusing instead on the device’s interface, which is based around eye movements and hand gestures, such as making a pincer movement with the thumb and middle finger.
“Apple made a decision during the Vision Pro’s development that hurt its gaming prospects,” Gurman says, acknowledging that “bringing a controller accessory into the equation would have been confusing to developers and further increased costs”.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and perhaps Apple should have redirected some of its outlay into the gaming sphere, but that would have come with a whole range of separate hurdles, such as the grunt required to drive gaming and everything else, and the creation of a hand controller.
Apple approached Sony earlier this year, “and the duo agreed to work together on launching support for the PlayStation VR2’s hand controllers on the Vision Pro”, Gurman says. “Inside Sony, the work has been a monthslong undertaking”.
He says Apple has discussed the plan with third-party developers, “asking them if they’d integrate support into their games”.
“This is critical because the currently supported PS5 and Xbox controllers are optimised for living room consoles, not virtual reality devices. To allow for the needed precision, Apple really needs dual hand controllers that support six degrees of freedom (6DOF) – like the accessories that Meta and Sony offer for their own headsets.”
Apple and Sony were set to announce support for PlayStation VR2 controllers weeks ago, Gurman says, but the rollout has been postponed.
“My expectation is that an announcement will still come at some point – unless it gets abruptly scrapped.”
