Voost Kain
Banned
Microsoft had a chance to storm the market with Windows Mixed Reality but failed to capitalize on their ownership of the Windows platform by making PC requirements too high, limiting the market to only the shrinking demographic who use desktop PCs or the tiny segment who use laptops with good graphics cards.
The platform has struggled to gain market share, and now it appears Microsoft has decided to stop trying to make it happen.
WindowsUnited.de reports that recent changes to Microsoft’s Affiliate program reflect the platforms Microsoft wishes to support.
Notable is that Microsoft will no longer pay a commission on Windows Mixed Reality headsets sold via the Microsoft Store. They join Windows Phone and the Microsoft Band as also being zero-rated – not exactly the best company to be in.
In an email Microsoft says:
"With this reclassification, we will focus our investment activities on Surface and Xbox products rather than on the following product categories"Other products which Microsoft will no longer be promoting include Xbox Live cards, Visual Studio and Windows, but these were never products that were pushed by Affiliate members to any degree.
This seems to be more evidence of Microsoft abandoning VR and doubling down on Office, Xbox, Surface, Project X cloud, Games on Demand, and others. It is now more clear than ever.
With WMR VR and semi-AR features put to the side to focus on HoloLens, which has different goals and isn't close to a consumer market price, the removal of VR from the Xbox One X, and no news of VR in the next Xbox consoles, I think it's time to come to the conclusion that, at least for some time, Microsoft has officially dropped VR in everyway outside directly making the announcement.
In fact, I've seen users here mention WMR, but it seems they are dialing back and moving away from WMR as well.