Apple is going all-in with hand-tracking for its upcoming Vision Pro, but can hand-tracking really replace proper VR controllers? Meta, Apple’s main competitor in the space, isn’t going so far as to make that particular claim, however the company says Quest’s recent hand-tracking improvements are now “almost as responsive as controllers” thanks to its recent v56 software update.
I imagine that for general productivity interaction, hand tracking combined with mouse and keyboard could work really well, same for most non-game entertainment. Certainly for some games as well. But there will 100% be games that aren’t possible with hand tracking or at the very least would be a lot better with controllers (haptic feedback alone makes such a bit difference).
I’m pretty sure it’s the right call for Apple, for now. But I hope that sooner or later they’ll start taking games seriously and at least support 3rd party controllers.