Apple Vision Pro Could Soon Support PlayStation VR2’s Controllers

Apple and Sony are working to bring support for PlayStation VR2’s controllers to Vision Pro, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports.

Gurman has a strong track record when it comes to reporting Apple’s moves in advance, and he even revealed many details of Vision Pro itself before it was officially revealed or even acknowledged to exist by Apple.

Apple Vision Pro’s gaze-and-pinch interaction system is ideal for interface interaction, and its hand tracking is suitable for casual gaming. But many VR and mixed reality games and interactive experiences on other platforms require physical controllers.

To bring this kind of content to visionOS, Apple approached Sony earlier this year to bring support for PlayStation VR2’s Sense controllers to Vision Pro, Gurman reports. This would also include support for navigating the visionOS interfaces.

Sony currently doesn’t sell the PS VR2 Sense controllers separately, not even for replacements, but when this support launches it would start to, including at Apple Stores and from Apple’s website.

Gurman claims Apple and Sony originally intended to announce the support “weeks ago”, and that the rollout has been postponed. “My expectation is that an announcement will still come at some point — unless it gets abruptly scrapped.”, he writes.

Apple Vision Pro Game Developers Report Frustrations

Developers spoke to mobilegamer.biz about their frustrations building Apple Vision Pro games for the Apple Arcade service.

Of course, support for controllers won’t in itself be enough to entice many developers to port their titles over to visionOS, as Gurman points out. Apple Vision Pro has an install base of only around half a million owners, and only a fraction of them will own or buy PS VR2 Sense controllers. To spur a gaming ecosystem on visionOS, Apple may need to fund developers, as Meta does for its Quest headsets. But it’s unclear whether Apple is willing to do that.

We’ll keep a close eye on Apple and Sony in the coming weeks for any signs of an official announcement of PS VR2 Sense controller support on Vision Pro.