HoloLens is an incredible product. The live demonstration Microsoft gave at their recent Windows 10 event dropped the collective jaws of tech enthusiasts everywhere. One of the central demonstrations was of Minecraft – the legendary block-buster (lol pun) which makes up one of Microsoft’s most notable recent acquisitions.
SteveRulez has sparked a whirlwind of discussion on reddit over some profiles on LinkedIn – one of which states explicitly that Microsoft are working to bring games to HoloLens. Daniel McCulloch is a HoloLens Studio Manager – he leads “4 amazing experience/game studios within XBOX” tasked to create consumer facing HoloLens software. One of which is listed as a ‘secret project’. Cortana bedroom game? plz? no? ok.
We’ve known for a long time that Microsoft’s “Project Fortazela” was designed with games in mind, owing to a deluge of patents and other leaks dating back as far as 2012. Many aspects of Fortazela came to pass with HoloLens, including the fact it was in-part, developed by the team that pioneered Kinect, and was inextricably linked to engineers from the Xbox team. Many of the images from patents allude to AR gaming. Microsoft’s ‘mixed reality’ approach eliminates the motion sickness effect experienced from headsets that blind the user, and have far reaching implications beyond gaming – perhaps most notably in engineering and other hands-on industries.
The evil AR banana is my favourite.
All this information just reiterates that Microsoft are one of the most exciting companies in world right now, and recently enjoyed a wave of positive press from the likes of Forbes, Gizmodo and more, regarding Satya Nadella’s direction. However, I think its important to note that HoloLens was greenlighted by none other than the controversial Steve Ballmer – who in my opinion deserves way more credit for Microsoft’s current position, perhaps that’s for another article though.
What ideas do YOU have for HoloLens gaming?
Oh and, if you have no idea what HoloLens is, you should probably blow your mind right now:
^Jez (@MSFTY)
Jez C (MSFTY) is a games journalist, Executive Editor at Windows Central. They contributed 39 articles to ICXM in 2015, focused on game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: now leads Xbox coverage at Future plc’s Windows Central as Executive Editor.