The Vision Pro may soon get support for Sony PSVR2 controllers, According to Mark Gurman in today's time power on newspaper for Bloomberg. Apple and Sony apparently planned to announce support for the controllers “weeks ago,” but they have pushed back the rollout. Under this rumored partnership, Apple will begin selling Sony's controllers, which are not currently available on their own.
Sony has apparently been working on adding support for months, while Apple has asked third-party developers if they would take advantage of Sony's VR controllers. This is potentially great news for Vision Pro owners who want the headset to have more gaming chops. (Some of the priciest, native VisionOS games are – thrasher, A mesmerizing game, where you throw a giant worm/dragon thing around a psychedelic space using only hand movements, comes to mind.)
Gurman writes that Apple wants to use the controllers for more than gaming — the controllers will be able to navigate VisionOS, and provide more precise control in apps like Final Cut Pro and Adobe Photoshop. Right now, you can pair a standard Bluetooth controller and navigate VisionOS — tapping buttons to select things, scrolling with the analog stick, and so on. They also work for gaming, but you're mostly limited to iPad and iPhone games with controller support. Emulators made for iOS or that native virtual boy one,
Will this partnership bear fruit and help games truly flourish on the platform? Given Vision Pro sales and Apple's track record of supporting game publishers, I'm not immediately optimistic.
Still, the Vision Pro is fundamentally different from Apple's other devices, and VR has its own landscape. And there are signs that the community wants it, with at least one Fully Funded Kickstarter Project Developing a Meta Quest 3-style controller for the Vision Pro, called Surreal Touch. Maybe the Vision Pro will get some great VR games – whether anyone will be around to buy them is another question entirely.