Microsoft Partnering With “Top PC Makers” to Build “Range of Innovative VR Headsets”

According to a tweet from the official Windows Twitter account, Windows is “partnering with top PC makers to build a range of innovative VR headsets.” What “top PC makers” the tweet refers to is unclear, but Microsoft promises the headsets will start at USD $299 and will come to market in 2017.

While it’s probably safe to assume, with the vague “VIRTUAL REALITY” emblazoned on the nondescript device in the image accompanying the tweet, that the pictured headset isn’t an example of an actual incoming product, the image does tell us two important things:

1. As this tweet came from the Windows twitter account, the Windows 10 logo is front and center, and there’s a Windows laptop in the picture, clearly this VR partnership is concerning PCs, not Xboxes. Though, with Scorpio coming next year, there certainly will be some kind of further VR announcement incoming for Microsoft’s console.
2. With the laptop, the more exciting implication is clear: VR support, on some kind of reasonably large scale, is coming to Windows laptops. And the laptop pictured, though again unlikely to be an example of a specific VR-ready laptop coming to market, is hardly some incredibly beefy looking gaming machine.

The announcement does leave much to the imagination, like if processing will be done on the laptop itself or perhaps on some sort of external attachment, with laptops notoriously lacking the firepower to handles games as well as their desktop counterparts. Furthermore, how these devices will compare to higher-end desktop VR devices, like the Oculus or the Vive, also remains to be seen.

Though, this is exciting news, because if companies traditionally known for PCs and PC accessories like an HP or Dell are entering the VR business with Microsoft to sell devices at such a pricepoint, this could be mean some big changes coming to VR gaming.

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This post was originally written by Ruben Circelli.