While Sony’s Playstation VR is said to be a device that will almost exclusively be used for video games, Xbox’s Major Nelson has doubled down on the company’s earlier comments that their VR device, the HoloLens will not be a “gaming first” device. This comment comes despite the fact that the HoloLens has been shown off playing games more than doing anything else.
Nelson recently gave an interview to Geekwire where he talked about the long term goals of the device and contrasted that to the development team’s focus on it right now. “HoloLens is not going to be a gaming-first device, that’s not what they designed it for. Eventually we will and I’ve played some amazing games on it, but right now [the HoloLens team] is focused on shipping a great product and making sure it’s going to hit all of the right notes.” Nelson said.
What isn’t entirely laid out here is whether or not the device will be launching with almost no gaming support, or whether that just won’t be the entire focus. We know the HoloLens is planned to be a device that can accommodate gaming eventually, considering the demos that premiered at this year’s E3. Does Nelson’s comments mean there won’t be support for those games we got a look at earlier this year until well after launch? Or does this just mean we shouldn’t be expecting a rather impressive list of games supported until well after the device hits the market? As of now, the HoloLens does not have an official release date, so we’ve got some time to find out.