Arcade Saga, a futuristic sports action game from HTC’s internal Vive Studios development and publishing group, could be coming to PSVR. Launched for the Vive headset in December 2016, the game quickly received Oculus Rift support, and recently saw further optimisations for Oculus Touch. Now wanting to bring the game to PSVR, HTC is going a step above to demonstrate their commitment to platform agnostic VR content.
When HTC launched Vive Studios along with Arcade Saga last year, it appeared to be a comparable initiative to Oculus Studios, albeit with an intention to support a broader range of VR applications beyond gaming. While Oculus’ major funding of VR content is focused on that which will be exclusive to its platform, HTC’s strategy is different, as stated on the Vive Studios homepage: “Our interest in VR extends well beyond games and entertainment, covering content that’s intended for all major VR platforms.”
Joel Breton, VP of Content for Vive, has been critical of Oculus’ strategy of funding exclusive titles, stating in a recent interview with Gamespot:
[…] at Vive Studios, we’re platform agnostic, and we encourage developers to be the same. So what I mean by that is [developers should] develop for all VR platforms that make sense. So we create first party content, second party content, and support third party developers. And we encourage all of those, including our own internal studios, to put their content on all platforms because that gives them the best opportunity for two things which are critical. One, to make more money, to generate more revenue, but also to build a community, because beyond money, the most important thing for a developers is to build a community around the game. So by having their content only on one platform, say Vive, they’re going to be blocking out a bunch of the market. So if it’s possible to port your game [to other VR platforms]… then we encourage developers to do that.
He uses Arcade Saga, a first-party title from HTC, as an example, noting its Vive and Rift support, and that he wants to bring the title to PSVR. “We are also talking to Sony about taking [Arcade Saga] to their platform next, and they’ve expressed a willingness to let us do that.”
For that matter, PlayStation VR has a number of its own exclusives—including Batman: Arkham VR which is now launching this month on Vive and Rift—but is far less entrenched in the VR exclusives debate thanks to it being a console-based headset where exclusives are the status quo.