Apple and Sony are now working on Vision Pro support for PSVR2 controllers

According to Mark Gurman in today’s Bloomberg Power On email, the Vision Pro could soon support Sony PSVR2 controllers. Apple and Sony reportedly planned to reveal support for the controllers “weeks ago,” but have delayed the deployment. Under this purported cooperation, Apple would start selling Sony controllers, which are now unavailable on their own.

Sony appears to have been working on adding support for months, while Apple has asked third-party developers if they will use Sony’s VR controllers. That might be wonderful news for Vision Pro owners who wish their headset had greater gaming capabilities. (Thrasher, a captivating game in which you hurl a big worm / dragon around a psychedelic space using only hand movements, comes to mind as one of the few good native visionOS games.)

According to Gurman, Apple intends to use the controllers for more than just gaming, since they will be able to traverse visionOS and provide more precise controls in apps such as Final Cut Pro and Adobe Photoshop. Right now, you can use a typical Bluetooth controller to navigate visionOS by tapping buttons to choose items, scrolling with the analog sticks, and so on. They also function for gaming, but you’re basically confined to iPad and iPhone apps that accept controllers, made-for-iOS emulators, and the native Virtual Boy one.

Will this cooperation bear fruit and allow games to thrive on the platform? Given the sales figures for the Vision Pro and Apple’s past record of supporting game publishers, I’m not hopeful.

Nonetheless, the Vision Pro is fundamentally different from Apple’s other products, and VR is a distinct landscape. And there are evidence that the community wants this, with at least one fully funded Kickstarter project to create Meta Quest 3-style controllers for the Vision Pro, known as the Surreal Touch. Maybe the Vision Pro will get some fantastic VR games, but whether anyone will buy them remains to be seen.