Oculus says it has no news on MacOS VR support for now

Why it matters to you

Don’t expect official Rift support on MacOS any time soon, but it will likely show up at some point in the future.

Oculus has no immediate plans to bring its Rift headset to Apple’s MacOS, despite the recent announcement of SteamVR support on the platform and the debut of Apple PCs that meet the minimum hardware requirements for comfortable virtual reality. The firm did, however, claim that it was “committed to bringing PC VR to as many people as possible.”

Once upon a time, during the Oculus Rift DK1 and DK2 days of the headset’s development, Oculus did have support for then OS X, but as of mid-2015, that all changed. With specifications of the headset creeping upward and Apple hardware not progressing swiftly enough, especially with regard to graphics, Oculus elected to drop support in favor of focusing on Windows PCs.

That proved to be a viable strategy at the time, but now that Apple has high-end systems that are more than capable, there is an argument to be made for re-enabling that support. As it stands though, Oculus has no immediate plans. When contacted by RoadToVR, Apple said in a statement: “We’re committed to bringing PC VR to as many people as possible, but no news on MacOS support at this time.”

This is a shame for those looking to pick up one of Apple’s powerful new systems, and certainly for developers who would rather build games and experiences on MacOS. Even so, the gaming audience, which is the dominant force in the VR market right now, is predominantly a Windows audience. And when you also consider that of the much smaller number of MacOS gamers, few of them will buy a new, VR-capable system in the near future, Oculus’ decision doesn’t seem quite so silly.

This is likely a temporary decision as well, as Oculus is likely to return with MacOS support in the future. With hints that Apple could one day begin producing its own virtual or augmented reality headsets, it would be a surprise if Oculus didn’t look to compete for the not-insubstantial dollars of the Apple audience.