Microsoft Kills HoloLens: The End of Mixed Reality for Microsoft?

Craig: microsoft kills hololens two.

Jon: yeah. so this is sad. this was one of my favorite headsets back in the day. i got to mess around with it a few times. they were the first to do arvr, i believe. there might have been someone else less mainstream, but, i liked it. i like how it sat on my head, and this was back in the day when we had heavier, headsets and stuff. but this is sad because like, as far as the development that was going on and all that sort of stuff, it had great potential. and so, like, i think they started in twenty ten. they had hololens one, and then they came out with hololens two. but, yeah, like, we need them to keep doing this so that they can compete with apple. or someone else needs to step in here. i know meta has their headsets, but you gotta be a part of meta's ecosystem and all that sort of stuff. and i don't know if they have an arvr mixed reality, but yeah.

Craig: so the original hololens headset will stop getting software updates on december tenth. the hololens two headset will continue to receive updates to address critical security issues and software regressions only until two thousand and twenty eight, which will mark the end of any software updates. and back in twenty twenty two, microsoft scrapped its plans for a hololens three headset. but a lot of people were thinking that, you know, they have this design and the technology is moving forward, so they're gonna come up with something new. right? yeah. so hololens two was first launched in two thousand and nineteen, just three years after the original. so the original was launched in two thousand sixteen.

Jon: okay.

Craig: it was advertised as a device for enterprise consumer. never really went well. so are any of these things doing well?

Jon: met is our, i think. but is a straight vr. right? and i know that those well, i don't know, but, it seems like those, those ar i guess, they're not vr. just ar. you know, those classes that we covered?

Craig: they're ar. yep.

Jon: the price point is good. i think one of the biggest problems with microsoft is their price point was too high. the price tag was thirty five hundred dollars. i don't know if that's us or canada, but that's expensive. that's apple money.

Craig: yeah. the hololens was priced at thirty five hundred dollars. again, you know, this is expensive as well. and, so it looks like they're shifting maybe to an ar strategy rather than a vr strategy. like, what apple looks like they're doing and what you're mentioning meta is doing. because meta, they have a oculus style headset, but what they're pushing now is their orion and their, ray ban version where it has certain functionality, and we're gonna be talking about, the existing version in a couple of minutes. so the question becomes, you know, this has been ongoing and ongoing and ongoing, and apple, canceled their high end, apple vision two or apple vision pro headset, the next version. and they're coming out there saying, well, we're gonna go with a cheaper version, maybe a fifteen hundred dollar version. the problem is the thirty five hundred dollar version already felt cheap.

Jon: it was. yeah. it was breaking very easily. yeah.

Craig: so are these just not selling? obviously, the price is up there, but, you know, the apple vision pro, similar price to hololens, is aimed providing a more immersive consumer friendly ar experience while meta's quest has made significant strides in making ar and vr accessible to wider audience, offering affordable user friendly headsets geared towards both, entertainment and productivity.

Jon: so here's my theory is that these two, the apple vision pro and the hololens, didn't really have out of the gate, people i don't think people could see the use case for them. and then add on to the price point of it. now the hololens, i think, was more for commercial purposes, but the apple vision pro well, i guess it was commercial kind of purposes when it launched. right? but when we're talking the vr headsets, like, they had a purpose. they were for gaming. they were for different things like that. but the hololens and the vision pro didn't have that, if that makes sense. or am i off base on that?

Craig: well, i think these are still like, i've been following ar and vr, and they've been talking about them since, i don't know, years and years and years. yeah. where you would go and try a machine somewhere because it was new and cool, but you had to pay, like, twenty bucks to try it. they've come a long way, but they're still not mainstream.

Jon: yeah.

Craig: so why do you feel that's not happening? like, microsoft killed hololens, understanding it it cannot compete with head to head with apple meta in the consumer hardware space and understanding that consumer hardware is dead and microsoft is not great at that. right? they yeah. i see. again. right?

Jon: yeah. speaking of hardware and issues, like, there were a lot of rumors floating around that they're moving away from an actual hardware xbox. and if you look at what they're doing, that does make sense because now they have this cloud streaming, xbox. you can play xbox games on your samsung. i can play them on my mac now. i can stream it from the web. right? yeah.

Craig: i was playing it on my ipad for a while. you can go and pay ten bucks a month and start streaming games, like, right away. so

Jon: yeah. oh, i have the x, the ultimate, game pass, so that's all included. but,

Craig: but i don't have an xbox. i'm just saying i went and

Jon: oh, okay. oh, it's ten bucks a month for that.

Craig: yeah. and then you get a whole bunch of games or something. like, it's like, end of the streaming services. so, you don't have to have an xbox. the question becomes, though and, again, you know, hardware is expensive. and a lot of times, it's a lost leader. and microsoft is saying, hey. you know, why before, they only wanted, for an example, office on their platforms. remember, for the longest time, they didn't put it on apple or anyone else's on android. and that now that you can get them on those now because they decided, you know, well, why would we do that? why don't we wanna get our software in as many hands as possible? so they're they're effectively repositioning itself as a software provider in arvr platforms. right?

Jon: and it does make sense if you look at, if you look at their acquisitions too. they're acquiring, game studios, right, yep. who are developing the games instead of focusing. yeah. i know that microsoft lost, i think, two hundred dollars or a hundred and fifty dollars per xbox sold. so, yeah, it makes sense. if they don't have to sell and they can still make the same amount of money and even reach more people and, by just providing, an app on all the different platforms, why not? right?

Craig: well, at some point, you'll you should wise enough and say, okay. why would i get into this now? we've been doing this for years. how many billions have we lost on this arvr hardware strategy? nobody in the market's making money on this, and it's still not mainstream. let's stop. let's focus on the software. let's get all this stuff working. let's let everyone else spend the billions of dollars. and when they've got something, you know, that the hardware is advanced enough and we're moving along, then maybe we'll jump back in when consumers are ready for this.

Jon: yeah.

Craig: like, why would like, again, it's great to be early. it's great to have your own headsets to play with internally, but they started with, the connect.

Jon: yep. i still have the connect that connects to my, my xbox one s. i still have games i could play. i love the kinect.

Craig: yeah. but so many people don't, but that's okay.

Jon: i know.

Craig: it, again, was generally a consumer flop because of everything. like, it's just a lot of investment in the hardware and the arvr space that is just not we're just not ready yet. and i think that's a lot of the problems. software not being ready is okay. but hardware, you know, you this is version three. this is version four. how many billions, like i said, are you gonna throw at this? and we're ten years away from mass adoption. like, why would i do that? so i think at some point, you're you're at a decision to say, let's focus on the software because when consumers are ready, we can then do a hardware strategy. and all the hardware will be way improved by then, and we'll save ourselves billions.

Jon: yeah.

Craig: so, microsoft's partnered with meta and apple to bring its suite of productivity tools like teams and office to ar devices like meta's quest and apple's vision pro. so like i said, they wanted their software on as many platforms as possible. the verge has reported microsoft could return to the ar hardware market as early as twenty five, twenty six, though nothing has been officially confirmed.

Jon: yeah.

Craig: like yeah. you, you know, you have to look at the environment and say, is it worth it for us to be hardware people in this environment, or should we focus on having the best tools, the best development environment, the best software, the best stuff for everyone else to use, we will develop inside that. so we're already gonna be a key player that's hooked into all these things. and when the hardware is ready and the market's ready, we can then come up with our own solution.

Jon: yeah. so

Craig: this is the thing go ahead.

Jon: yeah. it's it's so weird, though, because, like, you have these companies who've developed pretty decent devices, and the price point's pretty low. so i don't see why, i don't see why microsoft can't develop

Craig: well, again, there's a big difference between vr and ar, and a lot of these things don't have the same functionality.

Jon: yeah. yeah. yeah. the second you add in vr, then you've got you need a lot more computing power than just ar. yeah.

Craig: and spatial awareness. people are walking around and turning and doing all sorts of stuff in a vr environment. they need to know where your feet are. some of these have, you know, cameras that go around that are watching you in motion, never mind the glasses, to track you. yeah. yeah. so you need dedicated space. it's just not prime time. right? and do people really wanna be sitting on the couch next to somebody with these glasses on or even out at, starbucks or mcdonald's doing this? you know, i we're not ready yet. yeah. we still are at glass hole syndrome place. i think we're gonna have heavy reactions when this starts to become public that people are wearing around cameras on their faces again.

Jon: yeah. because it's not yeah. it's not very mainstream. it's a niche market right now.