Whilst VR seems to be very much the ‘in-thing’ at the moment with big companies such as Oculus and Sony investing hugely in the technology, Microsoft is characteristically taking its own approach – choosing to side with augmented reality instead.
Microsoft’s Kudo Tsunoda has provided us with more details on what sets HoloLens apart from virtual reality.
“The thing that HoloLens does is allow you to blend your digital world with your real world. Bringing of those two things together unlocks all kinds of different experiences. None of that stuff is things you could do with VR. It’s nothing against VR; I think VR is great tech. But it’s the ‘blending of the worlds’ part about HoloLens that makes it unique. From a gameplay perspective, it’s being able to make your real world environment an integral part of the experience. That’s really different than what you would get from a VR experience.”
What do you think? Can Microsoft make HoloLens work? If AR turns out to be more popular than VR then they’ve got a winner on their hands. But, it’s a gamble and we’ve seen what has happened with their last few gambles *cough Kinect, Kinect 2, Xbox must come with Kinect etc. *cough.
Either way, it’s exciting to have so much new tech in production in the industry and I for one am looking forward to seeing where both virtual and augmented reality go in the future.
