Our colleagues from Bloomberg recently published an extensive list of people who have participated and are still involved in the development of the VR headset (and mixed reality)Appledescribing in particular their role and the influence they have on the next product of the firm at the apple.
The section that concerns us is the one devoted to Phil Schiller (former vice-president ofApple and currently responsible forApp Store) because the latter insisted on the gaming :
Schiller, who is known to have a VR racing car in his home, lobbied for the device to have a strong component gamingespecially through third-party apps, an area it oversees.
If it can be reassuring for us players, too great contradictions between the various reports make one think that there is, to date, and in particular on the question of the gamingno consensus. Factually, if the rumors are true, the headset being delivered without a VR controller and controllable entirely in hand trackingdifficult to imagine video game ports from PCVR or standalone catalogs, which remain mostly playable through controllers. If there is a game, it will certainly be new applications or ports of apps can be played with hands.
The CEO of the VR studio Cloudhead Game (Pistol Whip) is also skeptical of the statement of Schillerevoking on Twitter thatnone of his colleagues have been contacted by the apple brand. Furthermore, he points out that Apple’s upcoming XR headphones won’t even support Unity Or Unreal Engineyet essential to video games:
Phil Schiller promises a “strong gaming component via 3rd party apps” at launch. To my knowledge, none of my peers in VR industry have been contacted by Apple, so do they mean 2D games? Junky AR apps? What are they talking about here exactly? https://t.co/2851tvGUBe
—Denny Unger @Cloudhead (@DennyCloudhead) May 22, 2023
To be translated by:
Phil Schiller promises a “strong gaming component via third-party apps” at launch. To my knowledge, none of my peers in the VR industry have been contacted by Apple, so are these 2D games, bad AR apps? What exactly are they talking about?
For sure, don’t expect to see Half-Life Alyx or Lone Echo II tumbling day one on the first headphones of the apple brandit will be essentially (without committing us too much) small games serving to demonstrate the potential of the helmet, without the desire to please the hardcore gamers. The headset would be unveiled on June 5 during the WWDC developer conference. We will cover the event and invite you (while waiting) to read the other articles on the subject: