Oculus Rift Will Get Xbox One Game Streaming Support on December 12

Microsoft has announced that you will soon be able to stream Xbox One games from your console to Oculus Rift on Windows 10 PCs with the help of a new app – Xbox One Streaming to Oculus Rift app.

“The new Xbox One Streaming to Oculus Rift app connects to your Xbox One via your home network,” Kevin Unangst, senior director of global marketing at Xbox, said in an official blog post. “Once connected, your console’s video output is streamed to your Rift headset and projected onto a massive screen in your choice of one of three immersive VR environments: ‘Citadel’, ‘Retreat’ and ‘Dome’.”

If you’re wondering what’s the need for “immersive VR environments”, that’s because your Xbox One games aren’t capable of naturally adapting to Rift’s 360-degree view. Project Scorpio, the confirmed 4K-and-high-end-VR upgrade to the Xbox One, isn’t out until fall 2017, so you’ll have to wait a bit to see if your Rift is supported by Project Scorpio, or Microsoft chooses to build its own native VR hardware. The latter approach would be a shift in how the company is approaching VR headsets for Windows 10, but then again the Xbox division has always built its own hardware.

While a full list of games isn’t available, Microsoft said that you’ll be able to stream the likes of Forza Horizon 3, Gears of War 4, Halo 5: Guardians, “biggest sports games”, “indie darlings”, and even some backward compatible Xbox 360 titles. Microsoft also wants potential Rift buyers to know that every Rift purchase comes with a free Xbox wireless controller – a nudge of sorts towards consumers to pick up an Xbox One S during the holidays if they are jumping onto the VR bandwagon – unlike the Oculus Touch controllers that cost $199 (about Rs. 13,600) on top of the Rift’s own $599 (about Rs. 41,000) price point.

The Xbox One Streaming to Oculus Rift app will be available for free in the Oculus Store on December 12, Microsoft said, and more titles will be added in the coming year. Hopefully, someone at Microsoft can use the next two weeks to come up with a better name for the app.