The next big paradigm shift in gaming is allegedly going to be virtual reality- while the HTC Vive and the Oculus Rift have both failed to make much of a mark for either the consumer market or the development community yet, it’s early days, and everybody expects virtual reality to induce the kind of shift that the rise of polygonal 3D originally did for video games.
As of right now, PlayStation and Xbox both have plans for this next big thing- PlayStation are bringing out PlayStation VR by the end of this year, while Xbox already has a partnership with HTC and Oculus to have some compatibility for both of their headsets on the Xbox One; the Xbox One Scorpio, in addition, is being made, in part, so Xbox can have true native VR compatibility.
But what about Nintendo? The company was experimenting with VR all the way back in 1995, when they released the infamous Virtual Boy- did its failure burn them so badly that they’re going to be sitting this round of VR wars out? Or do they have something planned? Speaking to Bloomberg, Nintendo of America’s Reggie Fils-Aime discussed Nintendo’s stance towards VR.
For us, we want to make sure technology is mainstream. We want to make sure that the technology represents strong value to the consumer,” Fis-Aime said. “So the way we look at VR, or even AR which we have within our Nintendo 3DS system, for us the technology has to be at a point where it could be mainstream, and then it takes content creating companies like us to really make things the consumer wants to experience, that they want to jump into the particular technology, that’s how we move it forward.
“We’ve been looking at the VR space since the days of the Virtual Boy. With us, we want to make sure our next content is going to be mainstream, mass market approachable. And when something like VR is at that point, you can expect Nintendo to be there,” he concluded.
It’s an intriguing note to end on- does this mean that the NX may in fact have some kind of VR compatibility, as was being rumored? Or are Nintendo content to wait for now, until the market is mature and proven? We don’t know yet, but it’s going to be exciting what kinds of things they can do with the medium, once they do get around to it.