Apple’s WWDC event detailed updates across its various software platforms, including visionOS 26 for its Apple Vision Pro headset, and two of the most exciting updates were spatial widgets and the news that PSVR 2 Sense controller support is on its way.
As Apple highlighted in its announcement, the new controller support will be very handy for VR game developers, as it will allow Vision Pro apps to use on a familiar control scheme that more closely matches that used by other platforms.
The Vision Pro’s ‘look and pinch’ mechanism may be intuitive for users, but it’s very different to what other VR headsets use, which makes porting difficult.
However, setting aside arguments that this update is arguably too little too late for the Vision Pro platform, there’s currently a much bigger issue to address: you can’t currently buy the PSVR 2 controllers separately.
So if you want to be able to take advantage of this new Apple Vision Pro feature you’ll have to buy a whole new PSVR 2 VR headset bundle at $399.99 / £399.99 / AU$649.00.
That said, visionOS 26 isn’t launching right away, though it is already available in beta. Hopefully, by the time of its full release Sony will have made PSVR 2 Sense controllers available to buy on their own – something fans of its headset have been asking for since launch.
At the time of writing, though, there’s been no confirmation that this will be the case – and given some of the missteps both Apple and Sony have made with their headsets I can’t say I’d be surprised if the controllers remained exclusively part of the PSVR 2 bundle rather than ever being sold separately.
We’ll have to wait and see what happens on this front, but the silver lining to Apple opening up its visionOS platform to VR controllers is that we might see it launch its own handsets, or perhaps even launch the next Apple Vision headset with a pair.
Considering the rumors we’ve heard about Apple wanting to make its next headset more affordable, this would certainly be a smart decision, as eye-tracking (a key part of the Vision Pro’s existing control scheme) doesn’t come cheap, and could be an easy feature to cull in order to cut costs.
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hamish.hector@futurenet.com (Hamish Hector)
