Apple Vision Pro is not a virtual reality headset. Not officially, anyway—instead, Apple uses the term “spatial computing” to describe the device's core function. While it's capable of placing users in fully immersive virtual spaces, it focuses more on the pass-through experience, where external cameras let users see the world around them. Most notably, many of its apps and features are tailored to entertainment and productivity purposes rather than prioritizing the VR gaming market as the likes of Meta's Quest 3 or Sony's dedicated PlayStation VR 2 do. But maybe that's where it's been going wrong all along.
While gaming does have a presence on Apple Vision Pro, the headset's use of eye- and hand-tracking for users to interact with the current visionOS means many games on the platform emphasize the mixed and augmented reality approaches of the hardware instead. There are plenty of cozy puzzlers or board game re-creations, where players can use their own hands to manipulate digital objects that appear to float in their living rooms, but fewer that warrant placing them in all-encompassing digital environments.
That could be about to change though, as a recent patent suggests Vision Pro may be about to get the one thing holding back some of VR gaming's biggest hits from coming to Apple's mixed-use headset—dedicated controllers. Alongside rumors of considerable updates coming to visionOS, per Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, a lot could be about to change for Apple's mixed-use headset.
