Oculus VR has joined forces with Microsoft

While Sony is working on its own virtual reality headset by the name of Project Morpheus, which will bring virtual reality to the PlayStation 4, Microsoft has decided to take a different route. Rather than developing its own headset, the company has joined forces with Oculus VR to bring native Windows 10 support to the Oculus Rift and enable Xbox One games to be played in virtual reality through the headset. The partnership will also see the long-awaited Oculus Rift shipped with an Xbox One controller when it launches next year.

Microsoft is partnering with Oculus to supply an Xbox One controller with every Oculus Rift virtual reality headset. Oculus will ship the controllers as part of its headset launch in early 2016, with the recently announced Xbox wireless adapter. Xbox chief Phil Spencer revealed the partnership on stage at Oculus’ E3 press event today. “We believe we’ll be able to create state of the art virtual reality experiences with the Oculus Rift on top of Windows,” says Spencer. The Oculus Rift will work natively on Windows 10, and Spencer revealed Microsoft will allow Xbox One games to stream to the headset as part of the virtual cinema experience Oculus has created. While the Xbox One controller will ship as part of the Oculus Rift headset bundle, the wireless element will require Windows 10, as Microsoft’s adapter is only officially supported on its new OS. Microsoft’s backing of Oculus could be seen as unusual given its HoloLens work, but it’s clear the software maker wants to support accessories for gaming on its Windows platform no matter what.