Earlier this week, we reported that Insomniac Games was acquired by Sony in a deal that would lock up exclusive titles for the PSVR platform. Although this news was somewhat shocking given the timing, Oculus doesn’t seem to be too bothered by it. Many believed this would be taken as a major blow for the Oculus brand, but they seem to disagree.
Jason Rubin, the VP of Gaming Initiatives for Oculus, took to Twitter to express his feelings about the deal. In fact, to many peoples surprise, he was congratulating Insomniac. He also said “And I wouldn’t worry about our Oculus Studios slate. We’ve got lots of big announcements coming…” this could be a scary sight for competing virtual reality signs. The biggest company has some big announcements coming? This is sure to be monumental when it happens.
Insomniac has been behind the development of some of the best Oculus Exclusives up to date. They created The Edge of Nowhere, The Unspoken, and they are the studio behind Stormland. Stormland is expected to be the game of the year for virtual reality when it is released in just a short few months. It will feature co-op play and a campaign mode with a lot of time to give. Stormland is likely to be the last exclusive game made for Oculus from Insomniac, so you can expect big things from this game.
But we already know about all of these games, so what could the big announcements be? We know that Respawn is expected to announce their VR game for Oculus next month, so that could be what Oculus is announcing. Although this would be a huge announcement for Respawn, it is not what we are going to be considering a big announcement from Oculus. There have been rumblings of Oculus working with Ubisoft for a Splinter Cell VR game and an Assassins Creed game. This could be all of it, or does Rubin have more up his sleeve? We are going to have to wait until the Oculus event at the end of September to know for sure.
As for the Oculus fans who are heartbroken about the exclusives they can’t play, Sony might have an answer. In an interview with Bloomberg last week Shawn Layden from Sony had some interesting insight on exclusive titles and their future. He said that “We must support the PlayStation platform — that is nonnegotiable. That said, you will see in the future some titles coming out of my collection of studios which may need to lean into a wider installed base.”
Although the common media is assuming this is meaning PlayStation gaming in general, this could also mean big things for virtual reality gaming as well. We know Sony has been pushing for more titles to come to their virtual reality headset. With VR making more sense than ever for the customers and PlayStation integrating it more, you can expect PSVR exclusives to make their way to SteamVR and Oculus headsets. This isn’t to say this is a sure thing, but it is as close as we have gotten to getting exclusives on other platforms.
If the companies are able to negotiate something reasonable for both sides, maybe trading exclusive titles and the rights to them, it could be a major win for the virtual reality industry. Every gamer in VR wants to feel like they have the freedom to play what they choose to, and this would be a step in the right direction. For more VR news and updates, make sure to check back at VRGear.com.
