Xbox Game Studios boss says VR is a market not currently worth entering

Meta Quest 2 VR Headset

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Xbox Game Studios executive Matt Booty stated that until the VR into something similar to their current big franchises, suggesting 10 million players, VR/AR is a market that is too small for Xbox to partake in.

“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,” stated Matt Booty in said interview.

This comes at a time where PSVR2 outsold the original Playstation VR at this time in its life cycle, selling approximately 600,000 untis in its first six weeks, according to Sony.

Apple has also announced its eyewateringly expensive “Vision Pro” headeset, and Meta will soon release the Quest 3, leading many to believe that the market will expand in the near future, as more people get their hands on headsets.

It is interesting to see such a key player in the industry drawing focus away from emerging technology like VR and AR, especially considering Xbox’s comittment to the cloud gaming landscape, but as the industry grows in scale, perhaps this will lead the company to reconsider when thinking of Xbox’s VR efforts.

Xbox Head Phil Spencer in 2019 called VR an “isolating” and “relatively niche” format. “Nobody’s selling millions and millions of VR units,” he stated in an interview with Stevivor.

At a time now when the Meta Quest 2 has sold upwards of 20 million units, hopefully in future more companies will consider VR a viable market to invest in.