Microsoft tonight dropped the bomb that it was indeed joining the VR race and it was developing the console hardware to power it’s offering, Xbox Scorpio. So what’s heading to Scorpio in terms of content? Fallout 4 VR according to Bethesda Director and Executive Producer Todd Howard.
Phil Spencer took to the stage at Microsoft’s pre-E3 show tonight to rundown the division’s plans for hardware and Xbox’s future. Microsoft had outlined the Microsoft Xbox One S earlier in the conference, a system 40% the size of its older brother and delivering High Dynamic Rendering capabilities (HDR) – coming in August. Their weapon in the VR race however wasn’t revealed until the end of the event, where the much rumoured Xbox ‘Project Scorpio’ was finally confirmed along with some basic specs and that it would indeed be capable of delivering “High Fidelity VR”. Check out the specs we know about right here.
Spencer said of the project “We’ve been talking to our friends” before introducing a reel including Xbox partners, one of which was Todd Howard, Director and Executive Producer at Bethesda Game Studios, the team behind both Skyrim and Fallout 4. Howard said of the project “…that technology component to us is what we really need to make our vision and our art come alive.” Howard then went on to say, “we’re moving Fallout 4 to VR, and to have a console that can support that, at the resolution and speed that we really want, I think it’s gonna be magical.”
Fallout 4 was already announced to be coming to the HTC Vive earlier in the day, with Bethesda stating it was committed to bringing the “whole game” to an immersive platform some time next year. It looks as if Project Scorpio, which has a rough release window of “Holiday 2017”, could be one ideally timed to make Fallout 4 one of it’s flagship VR releases. Early impressions of Fallout 4’s prototype VR version, demo’d as it was just after Bethesda’s E3 event earlier today, has so far been mixed.
Questions of course still remain on precisely what VR platform Scorpio might host, with Microsoft playing its cards close to its chest. Rumours up to now have suggested Scorpio would adopt the Oculus Rift, but it makes some sense that that decision may not be quite locked down yet. By the time Scorpio arrives, both PC VR systems (Rift and Vive) will have native motion controls, meaning Fallout 4 for example can evolve without fear of adopting a peripheral dead end.
Road to VR are at E3 all week bringing you all the VR news from the show floor.