Prophecy2k
Veteran
The tech all seems promisng to me. But the reveal as if MS was revealing a consumer product, rather than an R&D project or technology, just seems a little too hasty to me.
Microsoft HoloLens [Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Holograms]
You can adjust the contrast of the "hologram." People may have been different settings, or maybe the eye adjustment was not absolutely perfect. Many people mentioned they were not able to see the real world through the hologram, unless it was something very bright, like a reflection off of metal.
I'm really interested to hear what the performance is going to be in a variety of rooms. My biggest interest is a room with a lot of windows, and rooms that are very dark.
I'm really interested to hear what the performance is going to be in a variety of rooms. My biggest interest is a room with a lot of windows, and rooms that are very dark.
HaloLens is a standalone product, but Microsoft is looking at how it will work alongside another PC, or an Xbox.
http://www.polygon.com/2015/1/23/78...nto-how-the-hololens-could-work-with-pcs-xbox
http://www.polygon.com/2015/1/23/78...nto-how-the-hololens-could-work-with-pcs-xbox
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Sure but what is one of the most popular laptop lines you can get. MacBook Pro and MacBook Air. And those are?
Likewise, all OEMs have laptops that sell for 1000+ USD. That sell in the millions.
How many consoles are sold for 1000+? Laptops that sell for over 1000 USD certainly aren't niche products. Gaming laptops that sell for over 2000+ USD are certainly niche. As are workstation class laptops that sell for over 2000-3000+ USD. But the 1000+ price point isn't even remotely uncommon.
As long as the product is compelling with business targeted use cases, it'll likely sell quite well in the corporate market. There are huge benefits in Education, Medical, Engineering, Surveying, Landscaping, an Interior Design just to name a few. None of which will shy away from expensive devices. The consumer market will depend on how polished the product is along with any hype generated and to an extent the price point. But consider that millions of graphics cards are sold yearly for 500-1000 USD, and there's a lot of disposable income out there for cool tech.
Regards,
SB
but hopefully it wont follow the crazy options in PC market to reach various price point.
for example, 1000USD asus laptop usually also available in 600-700 USD. Same design, same series family, totally different innards.
But MS already have experience in Surface line and they do well in changing innards to reach various price points while making the overall experience relatively consistent.
for example, 1000USD asus laptop usually also available in 600-700 USD. Same design, same series family, totally different innards.
But MS already have experience in Surface line and they do well in changing innards to reach various price points while making the overall experience relatively consistent.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Imagine typing on a virtual keyboard. Anyone that can type over 100 WPM is going to be hugely annoyed by even 10 MS of additional lag. Which will make compositing of real world interfaces into VR unpleasant at best for work. For gaming, people will make do. For work, not so much.
Currently the only real advantage that VR has over this, IMO. Will be cost (if you don't factor in the computer/console required to drive the HMD), immersion (FOV), and occlusion of bright reflective surfaces (none for HMD VR, light for occluded AR). VR HMD's will always be cheaper if you factor out the machinery required to run it. And FOV is just an implementation and cost issue.
Regards,
SB
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Deleted member 11852
Guest
I hope so; the PS4/Xbox One/Black Friday trilogy last season was brilliant. It made me remember the episode where the kids were saving up for a SEGA Dreamcast. Wow, that show has been running a long time.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
At least they haven't been shy about saying when the first units "might" hit the market. Whenever asked, they've been quite upfront about this not having the possibility of hitting until 2016 at the earliest. And even in the reveal it was stated to be available during the Windows 10 Lifetime. So, basically sometime between when Windows 10 comes out and when Windows 11 comes out is the target.
Regards,
SB
Apple has something like 90% of marketshare in PCs over $1000.
If they have a real good quarter selling Macs, it's about 3-3.5 million units.
So most people are not buying $1000 laptops or computers. That market is maybe 10-15 million a year out of hundreds of millions of PCs shipped.
Look at sales of the X1. Lifetime sales reached around 10 million in just over a year at $500 and then $349 with a lot of free games. Double or triple these price points and think about what the volume will be, especially for something which will initially be perceived purely as an entertainment device. MS could say this will replace your PC and console but people aren't going to approach it that way, not initially at least.
If they have a real good quarter selling Macs, it's about 3-3.5 million units.
So most people are not buying $1000 laptops or computers. That market is maybe 10-15 million a year out of hundreds of millions of PCs shipped.
Look at sales of the X1. Lifetime sales reached around 10 million in just over a year at $500 and then $349 with a lot of free games. Double or triple these price points and think about what the volume will be, especially for something which will initially be perceived purely as an entertainment device. MS could say this will replace your PC and console but people aren't going to approach it that way, not initially at least.
Similarly, everyone owns a TV. What price does a new standard have to be (1080p, 4k), before it replaces everyone's TV and becomes the norm?
It doesn't. It can stay a niche product until the cost of manufacturing comes down which is what happens for a lot of markets. Its not like there are a slew of stand alone AR devices in the sub $1000 market thats eating up marketshare and establishing a brand presence.
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Deleted member 11852
Guest
When I were a wee lad, walking to school in the freezing snow wearing nothing but a sackcloth, we used to measure success by sales and profits. We thought this was sensible as money let you buy things, like better sackcloths and even shoes. As I grew up I realised this wisdom was deeply erroneous. Success is now what Wall Street decides it is.
You see Microsoft are now a bunch of losers because Windows market share is down to 70-75% from around 95% a few decades back. Microsoft only pulled in $4.97Bn in clear profit last quarter. This makes them real fucking losers because they can no longer afford to buy every employee a Learjet. When Samsung began to sell more mobile phones than Apple, Apple were losers. Real fucking losers. It doesn't matter that Apple were making more money than Samsung because money is actually worthless, as is consumer satisfaction. Sales are what matter even if you have no money. Look at Amazon, they have many many sales and Wall Street love them. They have no money but that's ok, because WINNERS!
I hope this helps.
Well there are over 10 million Kinects out there. Is it a "successful" product?
The context is that while MS has been wildly successful with OSes and Office, they've so far failed to leverage them into successful new businesses. They used the monopolies to fend off things like the browser, when it seemed like an Internet platform might usurp their dominance in desktop OSes. And they certainly have been trying in mobile but that's the big obvious missed opportunity for them. Apple at one point made more from iPhone sales than all of Microsoft's businesses.
Failure to establish itself as a significant player in mobile is supposedly one reason they have a new CEO, who's suppose to be making different types of decisions about which products they develop and which ones (including possibly Xbox) that they would drop.
They have the resources to try various experiments, some of which haven't panned out, like Courier and Surface (the one that takes up a table, not the tablet/laptop one), Zune, etc.
Would MS itself be content with a niche product? They probably would prefer that Surface Pro sold so well that they could cite its volumes rather than gloss over its sales.
I think they were hoping Kinect with Xbox One would be a home run, possibly redefine how people interacted with TV and other digital media in the living room. To their credit, they adapted.
If Hololens doesn't sell well out of the gate, will they keep working on it? They certainly stick with phones, even though they haven't seen the kind of success they'd like but it may be more that they can't afford to be out of the mobile business so they're willing to subsidize losses there.
I think that if your plan is to walk before you run, and you learn to walk, then you're successful. There is no way the expectation from them is that it'll immediately sell 50 million units. You can tell from the way they talk about how they're releasing it in stages.
I mean, NASA is already using it. You think the US military won't want to have a look? There are a ton of big money industries that are potential targets for this.
I mean, NASA is already using it. You think the US military won't want to have a look? There are a ton of big money industries that are potential targets for this.
AR is almost certainly going to be a success long term. The question is whether or not MS's flavor of it will gain enough traction to sustain itself until the tech and ecosystem can justify itself. It's not exactly a new thing for MS to be early to a party and attempt to spur an ecosystem around a new product, concept, or form factor, but it usually ends up being someone else that gets it right. Whether that's an issue with timing, engineering or marketing, I dunno. Probably a safe bet though that whatever Apple releases in the coming years will fit more easily with their product family, while MS will still be struggling for a stable identity in the retail market.
Selling 10 million of these things initially could be pretty poisonous for the longevity of the market though. They're not going to be cheap, they're not going to be that well supported, and they're going to very rapidly be made obsolete due to inadequate FOV+resolutions. Smart phone displays have been in a state of diminishing returns pretty much since the original Iphone launch, but we're a good 5 years or more away from reaching that sort of tech maturity for HMD displays. Not to mention support of critical features like accommodation, eye tracking, etc.
Selling 10 million of these things initially could be pretty poisonous for the longevity of the market though. They're not going to be cheap, they're not going to be that well supported, and they're going to very rapidly be made obsolete due to inadequate FOV+resolutions. Smart phone displays have been in a state of diminishing returns pretty much since the original Iphone launch, but we're a good 5 years or more away from reaching that sort of tech maturity for HMD displays. Not to mention support of critical features like accommodation, eye tracking, etc.
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Deleted member 11852
Guest
GameIndustry.biz has an interview with Peter Molyneux on HoloLens, and the inevitable comparisons with Kinect that it's attracted, given the similar style of reveal.
It's obviously Molyneux-slanted but makes for an interesting read. I had forgotten he was a Microsoft Executive and he states he was around during some of the early testing of HoloLens some years back. This is mostly his perspective having seen the unveiling.
It's obviously Molyneux-slanted but makes for an interesting read. I had forgotten he was a Microsoft Executive and he states he was around during some of the early testing of HoloLens some years back. This is mostly his perspective having seen the unveiling.
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Deleted member 11852
Guest
As hughJ posted, a lot of sales isn't necessarily a win. If a person's first introduction and investment in new technology is poor, or just not up to their expectations, that is likely to sour that person's view of the technology. If that person's opinion carries any weight then it can sour the view of that technology in others.
What Microsoft have shown - like the Minecraft thing in the living - is unbelievably cool. That just sounds incredible. But they need to have real useful applications for this technology. Thing's that stand up not just for 5 minutes with a reporter but that make the owner want (or need) to use it long-term. I linked an interview above with Peter Molyneux and he made a comment about fearing HoloLens may end up like Kinect, where Molyneux felt - and I agree - Microsoft developed really cool technology but did not take the next logical step and find uses for it. They just hoped developers would find fun and cool things to use it for.
From the Minecraft stuff I've seen, you wouldn't want to play Minecraft using this thing - well I wouldn't compared to a mouse and keyboard. It looks incredible because people haven't seen anything this well executed before. Once that facet was worn off, what are we looking at?
But MS isn't going to try to develop all the content for it by itself.
It's going to need third-party developers and to get those, it's got to produce a big addressable market where a certain percentage of people are willing to pay for content.
If it doesn't sell at a good enough pace, developer support would be an issue. They made the Kinect, put up some demos and figured if we build it they will come. That didn't happen, despite efforts to tie it to the X1 -- either the X1 didn't sell fast enough and/or developers couldn't think of good uses for Kinect in their games.
As for improvements, they'd probably look to iterate every year, like they would something like the Surface? Upgrade the CPU/GPU, improve the display tech incrementally, etc.?
It's going to need third-party developers and to get those, it's got to produce a big addressable market where a certain percentage of people are willing to pay for content.
If it doesn't sell at a good enough pace, developer support would be an issue. They made the Kinect, put up some demos and figured if we build it they will come. That didn't happen, despite efforts to tie it to the X1 -- either the X1 didn't sell fast enough and/or developers couldn't think of good uses for Kinect in their games.
As for improvements, they'd probably look to iterate every year, like they would something like the Surface? Upgrade the CPU/GPU, improve the display tech incrementally, etc.?
