I am fairly bullish about Microsoft for the next 2 years. They know that this generation isn't up yet and these changes that are coming should set them up for next generation as well. Everyone is painfully aware of delays, cancellations and last year being fairly bare, but I believe that the next two years should have tons of content.
Microsoft has been working on Mixed Reality, but what really is Mixed Reality? Well, I finally have an idea on what this is and why it is so important.
Microsoft has been working on the ability to have a new wireless HMD (Head Mounted Display) that is both Transparent for Augmented Reality and Opaque for Virtual Reality into one HMD. It will also be fairly light and small (compared to the VR headsets we have now) and like I said wireless and you won't need any external cameras or sensors. Just the device itself and maybe wireless controllers for it.
This also means that you can develop a game that will play on Xbox but will also play on the consumer version of Hololens next year. I am guessing the way it works is that your game code will
tell it how to adjust the HMD and it will auto adjust.
Mixed Reality is important because it's a pillar of the future of Microsoft. It's not going to be VR and that's it. VR is only going to be a part of what they are working on.
In order to push this, they need games to push this and other software such as HoloTour (which looks fantastic by the way).
I am guessing that the new Forza Horizon 4 will use this VR for it's game. It won't be at 4K though on these glasses, so I would expect less than that of 4K, but it should be different than just
having traditional VR with a flat OLED screen in front of two lenses.
The software has been built over time from 2015 onward as Casey Hudson (of Bioware) was heading up the software launch for Hololens and so they changed it to be for both Xbox and Hololens.
Add on A.I. and it becomes even more interesting.
So, I would expect lots of new titles over the next two years including exclusives for VR/AR and non VR/AR exclusives. This year and next should be a hoot. Finally, Game Pass for AR/VR becomes very interesting and a money saver.
I am more excited about Xbox than I have ever been.
Wait for E3 for the fun to begin and next year's E3 will have your full Halo 6. Don't worry peeps, lots of fun....
What's in it for me? Well... I want in to the fun to see what I can do with Xbox VR/AR and Hololens and maybe even build a game company around it. This is stuff that we dreamed about in the 1990's and it's finally happening.
Next generation will be very interesting with real-time ray-tracing and cloud compute/cloud streaming.
Microsoft is listening guys, but it takes time to build a gaming empire. It doesn't happen overnight and they can't just let everyone know what is going on for obvious reasons.
I hope I didn't ruin your E3 fun, but I wanted you to know that it's not as bad as things look and things are very involved right now. Gaming is very important to platforms as we are are well aware. Windows wouldn't be as big as it is, if it weren't for video games.
I wouldn't even be into tech if it wasn't for video games and my mom from the 1980's and 1990's telling me that I am wasting my time playing these things.
Also, one last thing.... Don't worry about the next two years because Microsoft has a plan for Back compat with their Mixed reality as well.
