...Scatter...
Banned
Who saw this coming? Oh. Everyone.... yeah. It was classic tech demo shit that MS makes a cool prototype for and another company will perfect and launch in 5 years and make lots of money off of. Like the iPad.
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Polygon: Hololens consumer release on hold following Kinect failure
- Thread starter Blanquito
- Start date
AndrewDean84xX
Banned
Good on them if they don't release it for quite some time. It's no rush really. Release it when it's price isn't stupid and you know people are ready.
Visualante2
Member
Microsoft was fucking around with Surface for like a decade before it became a consumer product. They play the long game.
Shouldn't bug you. Newspapers do the same thing. Proper sense should alleviate any concerns of flame bait.
The tech from what I saw definitely wasn't ready for mainstream. Haven't read the link but is it a hardware issue with kinect or a sales issue?
maquiladora
Member
Good call. The FOV seemed far too limited and the price would have been way too high.
Profit isn't the only way to measure the success of a product. If you make money from something but can't grow it into a future product or business then that could be considered a failure. Kinect 2 was basically DOA and it really harmed the Xbox One as well. Sure, they probably made a good amount of money from Kinect in a vacuum, but it wasn't good for their brand overall. And they can't make any more Kinect products with that stigma still there.
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
They would be on the consumer console level. You know... us normal people. Your average person would be like, "this expensive for pasted on things in my world, or jump into different worlds for around the same price"... that is how it would go down, and the message would be hard to discern. We just are not ready, apparently.
If it takes off like wildfire, and that is an 'if' for Sony, they are going to want to respond. Everyone and their grandparents would be buying a PS4 then, leaving the potential XBox VR-less system alone.
People need to stop acting like this scenario does not have a potential to happen. And Hololens would not be the answer to the VR elephant in the room on the console front.
Alx
Member
They're not going to pull out a VR headset for Xbox 1 out of nowhere, even if sony is successful with their own. We're closer to the end of the generation than its beginning, if a VR trend appears on consoles and proves successful, their logical move would be to make sure Xbox Two/10 supports one, either their own or one of the PC stuff. And in the meantime they'll say "come play VR on Windows 10 !".
A smart decision. Build the product as an enterprise and creative tool for businesses and once you can really expand the FOV, put it out to consumers.
Nothing vaporware about it. I've used it, and it's a really cool experience but with the limited FOV, it kinda holds back how cool the device actually is.
Nothing vaporware about it. I've used it, and it's a really cool experience but with the limited FOV, it kinda holds back how cool the device actually is.
Liabe Brave
Member
Yes they did. Here's my GAF post from last June where I pointed out the same refractive index limitation described straight out of the Microsoft patent.
CraigerGamer
Member
I respect MS for putting effort into the product. These kind of things take time and patients. Not sure why MS is getting killed in this thread over taking chances on new ways we can experience media.
They're not shelving HoloLens in total, just putting the consumer version on hold. The enterprise and business versions are still ongoing.
Weren't they all repurposed shortly after Nadella changed the focus to business productivity?
Crayon
Member
Agree. The hololens bullshit camera they invented actually looks more useful.
Im sure ms has a bunch of weird things in research. They just trotted this out so they could spin a story about being way ahead of vr.
They need to just show the feed captured by the visor camera, with a properly sized AR window, with proper Hololens colored graphics. Then they can honestly say that this is what the product they're working on is like. None of this imagine-the-possibilities-in-the-distant-future mumbo jumbo.
ProfessorMoran
Member
Then they can just buy the company.
It was a standalone product, iirc and wasn't being marketed as a console accessory at all, besides the few vids amongst many showing its connectivity to the XB1.
I didn't think this version of Hololens was ever targeting a consumer release. They were always pushing enterprise. But GAF has a weird reception to this.
The OP literally says it's for sale to businesses. That's the opposite of vaporware or a trotted out product. Some of you guys are ridiculous when it comes to this.
BeforeU
Oft hope is born when all is forlorn.
If this gets shelved then I have no idea what the future of computing will be.
So no, not a chance.
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
Right because obviously companies want to spend 3k per head so that their staff can play minecraft and shoot aliens popping out of their offices' walls.
Rembrandt said:
Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think they've shipped anything yet.
Vaporware doesn't necessarily mean it's not real at all in some shape or form.
Oh! I see now, you actually have no idea what Hololens is and vaporware has always meant an announced product that doesn't get manufactured/released.
And it's been shipped to beta testers and is shipping within the next few weeks.
But it wasn't, lol.
It wasn't what? Wasn't it showcased in a staged demo at E3 at the same time as Sony was introducing its VR tech?
If Sony can release VR for as much as they are with as power constrained as it will be, everything has a chance to be released.
GuitarAtomik
Member
There were units distributed for a private closed beta back in January. They're supposedly creating demos for a new Actiongram app that will be revealed next week. The first beta started Feb 1 and runs through March 31. The second beta starts April 1 and runs through the end of Oct.
There is supposed to be an announcement next week on when the first wave of developers outside of the private beta will get their units.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/micros...ns-beta-kits-actiongram-mixed-reality-videos/
Did you read what you posted? From the beginning, they said it was aimed towards enterprise.
One showing out of the tons showing off the non game features?
By showing mostly Minecraft and pseudo-shooters and some guy chilling out watching a movie or a football game? By saying "living room this living room that"? By putting their windows holographic stuff into W10 by default?
Why would they bother with all that if it was just aimed towards enterprise from the beginning? Why would they announce today that the consumer version is put on hold until further notice?
Because a ton of people started talking about it who otherwise wouldn't have. It wouldn't even be a discussion on this board at this point if they hadn't put the gaming spin on it from the beggining.
For awareness? The one of the most important things when announcing a new product and the way to do it, even if for enterprise or research is throught the mass market.
But sure it just vaporware.
The CEO said it was enterprise first. They announced the first editions would only be aimed towards enterprise and business users. They said this all last year. They have shown off those uses, you can Google that. Them showing its use in gaming at only one show out of all the other uses and demos doesn't mean it was targeting gamers. It may be to get devs on board early, to spread knowledge of its existence to people that have none (like you evidently), to show off its multiple uses.
They have examples of the businesses/schools that are using it now and have been encouraging devs to develop apps for it.
https://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-hololens/en-us/commercial
And they also announced a while ago that the consumer version was launching soon.
This is from last year:
Adweek said:
Yeah, it failed even though companies are already using it and its shipping to developers/businesses in the next few weeks.
SlickShoesRUCrazy
Member
A tethered Hololens device would probably be the best way to achieve illumiroom.
I'm not disputing that they have other commercial/enterprise uses for it but I just think it's pretty telling that they chose to dedicate a significant portion of their E3 conference to this tech at the same time as Sony was unveiling their VR. I think that's the main reason people here on a gaming forum are talking about it. If your competitor is releasing a hot new thing that you don't have, a great way to steal some of their thunder is to try to position something you do have which is kind of similar as if it were an answer to that. This is all speculation on my part but if it's not the case then it begs the question: why did they show it off at E3 when it will have no gaming application any time soon and currently costs a few grand?
Yup, they invented the entire thing, had it all set up to run Windows 10, assigned development teams (some which they newly created) to it, and are producing and selling it to businesses/developers, simply to get some E3 time... I mean, do you actually think that's the sort of decision making occurring anywhere in the world?
Also, buy a HoloLens, hold it out at arms length instead of wearing it, and then record the direct feed from it. Congrats on your new bullshit camera.
Hololens seems like interesting tech with some potentially interesting uses for enterprise. Microsofts first video with the motorcycle CAD tool and fixing the sink showed that pretty well.
It got completely derailed when they started going on stage at consumer shows and pushing minecraft or face raiders style shooting games.
I assume that was some stupid decision made perhaps by marketing. The innocent suggestion is that it was to get more eyeballs and interest while they continued to aim at businesses. The less innocent suggestion is that it was a misinformed tactic to show 'hey us too' when Valve, oculus, and particularly Sony, were talking about and showing VR
I doubt it was ever destined to be a consumer product in that form (and certainly not at that price)
There's the other scenerio where they were trying to raise and gauge dev interest in making gaming apps for it. Maybe they are putting the consumer version on hold because they didn't get the game dev response they wanted. That's more agreeable with what Kipman said with regard to not having enough things to do with it.
darkinstinct
...lacks reading comprehension.
You're not paying 3k for the tech, you're paying for dev tools and support. As a consumer, no, it's not worth it right now. The aliasing is horrible (check the Actiongram video from yesterday). That's even worse than the limited FOV.
I wouldn't call that a "derail" tbh. It's not like those demonstration in any way invalidated the previous demos they did. I'd imagine they simply thought that showing the device's gaming applications in detail made more sense at a gaming show. I think it's quite clear that the device was at least initially viewed as a consumer level device based on all the leaked info we received about Project Fortaleza, that essentially described it as an Xbox peripheral. It seems that at some point MS realised that gaming wasn't going to be the device's strongest use case (much like it wasn't really for the Kinect either), and the project morphed into what we today know as HoloLens. That it has gaming applications is by no means forced, or reactionary when you consider that it was technically the first of all these headsets for any of us to know about. The push to attract developer attention, and the Sony's push towards VR just happened to overlap. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see HoloLens still make an appearance at that E3 in an alternate reality where PSVR wasn't shown.
Well sure... if you also consider PSVR and the like as doing the same thing your TV did decades ago. Otherwise, no... don't be daft.
justsomeguy
Member
... for consumers. Which is why it's not aimed at consumers.