Indie studio hopes, but doesn’t know, if Nintendo NX will support VR

People are curious about the upcoming Nintendo console, and that mystery has led to some excitement. Now, one developer is riding that anticipation to help his own game — and he is causing some confusion in the process.

Nintendo hasn’t said if its upcoming dedicated gaming platform, code named NX, is getting virtual reality support. Developer Patrick Ruckdeschel of Zockrock Laboratories announced his new exploration game Riverside with a reveal trailer that claims it is in development for both the the virtual reality Oculus Rift headset and the NX. This caused some to speculate that NX, which is due out in March, will include VR as a feature. But Ruckdeschel has clarified that he does not yet have a Nintendo NX development kit, and he’s only hoping that the system will support VR. He further explained that Riverside is in development for non-VR platform like PC and Xbox One.

We asked Ruckdeschel for comment, and we’ll update this post with any new information.

The overall gaming industry is worth $99.6 billion today, and analysts predict VR could generate as much as $30 billion to $40 billion by 2020. But despite the money that’s at stake, Nintendo has not explained how the NX will work or what its core features are. We won’t learn that for a while because the company has decided not to show the NX at the Electronic Entertainment Expo trade show in Los Angeles next week. But while we wait for details, the Riverside trailer — which you can watch below — did not break the news that NX is a VR device.

This VR game looks interesting, but the claim that it’s “in development for Nintendo NX and Oculus Rift” could mislead some people. It is in the works for more platforms. When someone pointed out on Twitter that NX doesn’t have VR capabilities that we know about, that’s when Ruckdeschel pointed out that a non-VR version is coming as well.

Additionally, not having an NX devkit (which is the hardware that enables studios to build software specifically for a console) means Zockrates probably doesn’t know anything about the secret features of the NX. Ruckdeschel admitted as much when someone asked him point blank if it has VR support.

i got no devkit so far, so i can inly hope

— Zockrates Labs ? Gamescom (@zocklabs) June 6, 2016

I guess everyone else will have to keep on hoping as well.