Apple Vision Pro is Reportedly Getting PSVR 2 Controller Support

Apple has reportedly teamed up with Sony to make the company’s PSVR 2 controllers compatible with its Vision Pro headset. In the latest edition of his Power On newsletter, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported that Sony has been working to support the Vision Pro for a couple of months, and Apple has also been discussing with game developers to see if they’d be interested in making their VR games take advantage of the PSVR 2 controllers.

“Apple and Sony originally aimed to announce this capability weeks ago, but the rollout has been postponed,” Gurman wrote yesterday. “My expectation is that an announcement will still come at some point — unless it gets abruptly scrapped.”

The Apple Vision Pro currently supports PlayStation and Xbox wireless controllers like iOS, iPadOS, and macOS devices. However, Apple will need the Vision Pro to have dedicated hand controllers to make the $3,499 headset competitive with other VR headsets with better developer support.

Gurman reported that Apple has been prototyping a wand-like accessory for the Vision Pro, but said that it would be “more of an Apple Pencil-like tool for precise control, rather than gaming.” Anyway, the reporter believes that Apple “doesn’t have any imminent plans to launch its own controller.”

In some ways, the gaming situation on the Apple Vision Pro is quite similar to how Apple treats gaming on the Apple TV, a product Steve Jobs often described as a “hobby.” Apple never built its own game controller for the Apple TV, and the company also took some time to add support for Xbox and PlayStation controllers on tvOS. While many games on the platform now include controller support, you’ll mostly find casual/mobile games on the Apple TV App Store, and game streaming services are still absent from the platform.

Even though the Apple Vision Pro received praise for its software and user interface, the headset is too expensive for most consumers, and the majority of developers aren’t going to spend time and resources to bring their apps and games to visionOS. “Since the Vision Pro went on sale in February, I’m told that the company has sold fewer than half a million units. And a large number of Vision Pro buyers (those who haven’t returned it) aren’t using the product as much as Apple anticipated, according to internal data gathered by the company,” Gurman wrote.

It will be interesting to see if the Vision Pro getting support for Sony’s PSVR 2 controllers could make it a bit more attractive for VR enthusiasts. Sony’s second-gen VR headset also isn’t exactly a hot seller, and the Japanese company may benefit from selling its PSVR 2 controllers as a standalone accessory. Earlier this year, Sony also launched a PSVR 2 Adapter for PC that makes it compatible with thousands of VR games on Steam.