One of the bigger announcements from Sony’s E3 briefing last night was the announcement of Skyrim VR only for PlayStation VR. Well, it seems that exclusivity may just be a timed arrangement according to some sources and we will in fact see an HTC Vive / Steam VR release at some point.
There are many games out there that people would love to come to VR (or perhaps for VR to come to them). Skyrim however is right up there on the most wanted list. So, learning that Bethesda was working on an official virtual reality release at yesterday’s Sony E3 briefing was likely music to many VR enthusiast’s ears. What wasn’t so welcome was the news that Skyrim VR would be exclusive to PlayStation VR.
Not only was it disappointing for owners of PC VR systems like HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, it didn’t seem to make a lot of sense given the reveal of two other major VR reveals from the group – namely Doom VFR and Fallout 4 VR – the previous day.
It’s now being reported that, according to Sony sources at E3, the PlayStation VR version of Skyrim VR is merely a timed exclusive and that – as with Doom and Fallout – there will be a Steam VR version to be released at a later date. How long that timed exclusivity will remain in place is unclear, but this strategy makes a lot more sense, more inline with expectations. This according to reporting from Gamerant and from apparent conversations had by Jeff Canata on the DLC gaming podcast (skip to approx. 1hr 3m) with a Sony rep at E3. Canata said “I don’t know if I’m able to say this but I’m gonna, they [Sony] said it’s a timed exclusive. So it is going to be exclusive to PlayStation VR for a while before it comes to Oculus and Vive,” likely meaning a SteamVR release rather than a specific Oculus Store version as well, just like its Fallout VR and Doom VFR stablemates.
We’ve reached out to Sony for confirmation of this information, we’ll update this article once we receive a response either way.
