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Xbox boss Phil Spencer has said that current consoles simply don’t have the power to offer virtual reality gaming at a quality comparable to console standards.
When we went out and talked to VR developers,” Spencer told Wired when asked about the 6 teraflops of computing power packed inside the company’s new Xbox Scorpio. The capability and the hardware spec that they need to deliver a console-like experience to VR was a requirement of 6 teraflops, which clearly, today’s consoles – PlayStation 4 and Xbox One – don’t have.
The truth is, a console that can run a 2D version of Doom or Fallout today, which a PS4 and Xbox One can, is not going to be able to do a stereoscopic, high-framerate version of those games. We don’t want to force VR into a middle ground between the scale that we see in mobile, and what our customers [expect].”
Sony, of course, will be releasing a PS4-based virtual reality in October. Questions have already been asked about the performance of VR titles with the current machine, with one report speculating that Neo was created primarily as the PlayStation VR experience on today’s PS4 was terrible” and truly awful”.
It’s worth noting, however, that early press impressions speak positively of the device and its gaming credentials.
Spencer hasn’t yet revealed what Microsoft VR solution for Xbox Scorpio will be, although he did add that Microsoft is not currently focused on a first-party VR hardware device” and that the new machine would enable many hardware manufacturers to make progress [in VR]”.
