VR is still slowly making its way into the mainstream, with many companies jumping at the prospect of virtual reality software. Valve’s Index is among the best PCVR headsets, while Oculus is going the more affordable route with their Oculus Quest, which works as a standalone product that doesn’t need a PC. Even Sony has gotten in on the action, with the company making headsets for their PlayStation consoles, though the game library remains on the Playstation Store. With a new set of controllers and a new headset coming for the very powerful PS5, it could be said that the company is going to give the other VR giants a run for their money. But Xbox isn’t in the race, and according to Phil Spencer, they aren’t intending on joining it.

During the Kinda Funny Gamescast, Phil Spencer appeared on the show and talked about the prospect of putting VR on the Xbox, stating that the game company isn’t looking to make an official Xbox VR headset. This is strange to hear, as the company has made mention about VR in the past, as well as the fact that Microsoft has been making AR headsets for a while now. While those are more for corporate use, they could be done to make a proper VR experience for games in the Xbox Family.

Phil Spencer continued on the topic by mentioning how one headset changed his perception of the platform. “As it relates to VR specifically, the best experience that I’ve seen is Quest 2. And I just think its untethered ease of use in its capability just doesn’t to me require it being connected to an Xbox in any way So when I look at a scenario like that, I think of XCloud, I think of the Xbox Live community, I think of other things of how could we bring content to a screen like that.”

This is an interesting thought about the VR landscape, as xCloud could provide some new insights into the way that player’s experience VR content, as they’ve done before. The Oculus got an Xbox One app, which let players stream games onto a virtual screen, allowing for players to experience their game in real-time on a massive scale. However, with xCloud, and how well it worked on other devices, it could be possible that a version of Xbox Game Pass is going to come to VR, much in the same way as the Oculus’ Xbox One streaming app worked.

xCloud could also be used to make Xbox-specific VR titles and increase fidelity on underpowered headsets like the Oculus Quest 2. Much like the possibility of Netflix incorporating VR into their lineup, Xbox is going to have to consider the fact that the majority of VR owners have an Oculus Quest, and many of those owners are using the headset as a standalone product. This means that Xbox content would have to be made for the headset. With the power of xCloud, though, games could be made to not only look better but function as a second piece of power for standalone headsets like the Oculus Quest 2.

On the other hand, Phil Spencer mentioned another piece of information during the podcast. “Whether we do something like that through first-party or third-party partnerships is kind of a second step to do we think the games that we currently have that we’re able to run on our platform would work there.”

This could bring in the possibility of Xbox games being available on PCVR. While not VR ports, maybe new content could come to the VR landscape for partnerships through Steam or Oculus, seeing that Xbox is willing to put some of their titles like Halo and Sea of Thieves onto the Steam storefront. As competition in purchasing between console and PC seems to disappear, seeing that some Playstation titles are making their way to Steam as well, perhaps more VR content from all studios could be included in this VR landscape in the future.