Given how prominently Owlchemy Labs pushes hand tracking controls, we had to ask during an interview at Gamescom.<\/p>\n
It’s a thought that comes to mind given how Dimensional Double Shift<\/a> is hand tracking only, while Job Simulator<\/a> and Vacation Simulator<\/a> both received updates to support this post-launch. With that said, does Owlchemy’s head, Andrew Eiche, think the studio’s games will be played by more people through hand tracking in the next five years than with controller tracking in the last nine?<\/p>\n \u201cI hope so. I want to believe so,\u201d he said, unable to avoid a pun. \u201cI think that question is largely out of our hands.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think what it really depends on is if the headsets can build traction. One of the biggest friction points I’m seeing is the desire of tech companies coming into contact with the people who are actually interested in XR. I want to be clear, Google, I’m not [disparaging] this, but some companies have this big idea that people are going to do their work in XR, and we just haven’t seen that play out.\u201d<\/p>\n Eiche suggests that hand tracking is \u201cthe way to do the broadest appeal in VR right now.\u201d He believes more users will continue preferring it because it’s a \u201csimpler\u201d option, noting how Steam has experimental support while PlayStation VR2 games with hand-tracking support<\/a> began appearing earlier this year.<\/p>\n We shouldn’t expect hand tracking on the PS VR2 versions of Job Simulator or Vacation Simulator anytime soon, though. Eiche confirmed there still isn’t a direct pathway in Unity to support hand tracking on PlayStation VR2 yet, stating Aldin Dynamics used its own middleware solution for Waltz of the Wizard<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThat’s a pretty heavy lift, and we’re just not ready to take that up.\u201d<\/p>\n