Microsoft Xbox says it won't get involved in VR right now because the market isn't big enough

On June 20, according to The Hollywood Reporter, Matt Booty, head of Microsoft Game Studios, said that Microsoft currently has no plans to enter the field of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) because the market is too small to meet Microsoft's gaming success standards.

Buti said Microsoft's games need to reach a scale of about 10 million players to be successful, and VR and AR do not have such an audience at present. He also said that Microsoft is fortunate to have some big IPs that can create continuous game series and large communities.

Buti's view differs from the strategies of companies such as Sony and Meta (formerly Facebook). Sony launched the PlayStation VR2 in February this year and reportedly sold 600,000 units in six weeks, surpassing the initial sales of its predecessor. In March, Sony President Hiroki Totoki said he thought the PS VR2 had a good chance of surpassing the total sales of its predecessor, which had sold 5 million units by the end of 2019. Meta revealed earlier this year that its Quest VR headset had sold nearly 20 million units.

IT Home noted that Phil Spencer, the boss of Microsoft's gaming division, caused controversy in November 2019 for his comments on VR, which some people saw as contempt for the technology. He called VR a relatively niche and "isolated" form that did not fit his vision of gaming as a "shared" entertainment, adding that "no one asked for VR" in Xbox user feedback. Spencer later clarified his remarks, saying that he "likes" the game industry's pioneering in different fields, but VR is "not our focus." He said in February 2020 that while Xbox does not support VR, he hopes that one day the field will become "so important that we have to join." By the following year, Spencer reiterated that Xbox had no interest in developing VR hardware.