Microsoft is Killing its Windows VR Platform (windowscentral.com) 29
Microsoft has announced that it is deprecating Windows Mixed Reality, with plans to remove the feature in an upcoming release of the OS. From a report: Windows Mixed Reality was Microsoft's attempt at building out a VR ecosystem for Windows PCs, but unfortunately this effort has been mostly inactive for a number of years. While there have been several VR headsets built for Windows Mixed Reality, most of them launched between 2017 and 2021. It's been a long while since OEMs released new VR headsets for Windows Mixed Reality, likely because SteamVR is a much more successful platform with a much wider selection of games. Unfortunately, Microsoft says the deprecation of Windows Mixed Reality also includes support for using a Windows Mixed Reality headset with SteamVR, along with the dedicated Mixed Reality Portal app which acted as a launch environment for VR apps and games built for Windows Mixed Reality.
Remind me in five years... (Score:2, Insightful)
... to look for the story saying Apple is doing the same.
Apple to launch Vision Pro in Feb (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They can flush money more effectively because they're comfortable going all-in on moonshots and delivering new market-making products with superb hardware/software integration. Microsoft lacks that faith in itself.
Will Apple VR work? Will any VR tech this decade be anything more than a niche gaming platform? Um, no, probably not. But if any of them do work, it'll be Apple's.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
This sounds like the 'beware what you ask for' thing. I don't see these VR headsets as a huge economic driver for anyone.
Re: (Score:3)
They’ll be a bigger and bigger thing but manufacturers seems to want a big payoff and consumers who care about this sort of thing seem to want a nonstop supply of killer apps even though like 2% of the population is capable of playing VR for more than an hour. For some reason we keep coming up with new ways to play video games and then people declare it the future of gaming and then when it’s something less than that everyone wants to declare it trash.
See also: Motion gaming.
Re: (Score:2)
... to look for the story saying Apple is doing the same.
Unlikely. Apple has a closed market, Microsoft had an open market. Apple is competing with precisely no one as SteamVR has been in Beta on the mac for 6 years now and it seems most VR users can't get 3rd party headsets to work consistently.
On the flip side Microsoft was competing with both Oculus and SteamVR, both of which actually funded game development, both of which were interoperable with WMR devices, meaning ... why would anyone develop anything from WMR if they could target SteamVR instead and still
Re: (Score:2)
On the flip side Microsoft was competing with both Oculus and SteamVR, both of which actually funded game development, both of which were interoperable with WMR devices, meaning ... why would anyone develop anything from WMR if they could target SteamVR instead and still have access to a market which includes 100% of people who bought WMR headsets.
The market was too small for 3 competing APIs.
There is only one API with a future and that is OpenXR. The entire industry is moving in that direction.
Re: (Score:2)
The market was too small for 3 competing APIs.
The API's are mostly a non-issue, as the entire industry is converging on OpenXR. Microsoft failed because everyone who can avoid Microsoft does so, and Windows Mixed Reality was an obvious dead-end.
Apple will likely close up its AR shop (the only question is "when?") because it's lowest cost product is seven times the cost of the market leader (the Quest 3). Unless Apple hits a government contract, its market is not going to be large enough to support its ravenous appetite for margins.
Even with the substan
OSS (Score:4, Interesting)
We have used some of those (cheaper) windows mixed reality headsets in public exhibitions and museum kiosks, development was done on Valve's (more expensive) system using the SteamVR API, and they all run fine using MS's bridge software.
Re: (Score:2)
Would be nice if MS open sourced their "Windows Mixed Reality for SteamVR" bridge before abandoning it .. Or perhaps we will get a replacement from the community.
There is OpenComposite which is a shim that translates OpenXR to OpenVR. Hopefully soon everything will be OpenXR and OpenVR (steam's VR API) can be retired.
Re: (Score:2)
Would be nice if MS open sourced their "Windows Mixed Reality for SteamVR" bridge before abandoning it
But that would open the possibility of someone else benefiting from their work. That's not how Microsoft does open source, they only open source small things that they are already shipping and want people to improve it. This is how Microsoft does open source, when it's only to their benefit.
Jumped the gun (Score:1)
Anyone with two brain cells to rub together could have told them that the hardware wasn't affordable enough to build their own market around at this time. Too bad nobody like that works in management there.
Re: (Score:2)
This segment was dead in 2019 even. The only thing that saved it was the Army's IVAS program. The announcement of its doom was delayed to try to sell headsets to the Army, preserving the notion this was a product with a long tail, rather than something that already got cancelled.
Since IVAS isn't doing so hot currently, they probably didn't see the merit in maintaining the fiction anymore.
Re: (Score:2)
Finally, another piece of shovelware gone from the default profile.
Yay! Remove more crap to make room for other crap! (Score:2)
Craptacular experience there MS. How about allowing the customers to decide what bloat embeds their desktop? Yes I realize that most if not all of that code wasn't used but it also represents a possible attack vector, slows your system down and wasn't requested!
Re: (Score:2)
> How about allowing the customers to decide what bloat embeds their desktop?
When you have insufficient competition, you don't have a give a flying f$ck what the customer wants.
Please don't kill it (Score:3)
Have an HP G2 I just picked a few months ago and quite like it. Feel free to kill off the portal, store integration..etc. Please don't abandon OpenXR hardware drivers for WMR HMDs.
I can buy any old monitor and keyboard and plug them into my computer and they will just work. An HMD? Every HMD vendor has their own stack and to use it at all requires you to create an account and have their stores pushed on you just to use the hardware.
Instead of WMR there should be class drivers for HMDs so that they just work like monitors or keyboards. Require HMD vendors to do reasonable abstractions internally for tracking, uploading shaders..etc.
Or maybe it's because (Score:2)
it's not polite to wear hats indoors?
Seriously, who likes having some big thing strapped to their head? And cut off my view of the room/world I'm in? That's not a feature, that's something that needs fixing.
VR is the same as 3d glasses. Cool for some niche audience. Not something I'd ever want.
Oh no (Score:4)
At this rate Meta will win by default. And by win I mean spend $46.5 billion on the metaverse with nothing to show for it.
Re: (Score:2)
More like "None of the Above" wins by default.
Ofc. Steam VR and Quest merger... (Score:2)
Ok it's not a total merger, that was totally clickbait.
But when SteamVR came on the Quest platform as an option to use alongside META Quest 2-3 (no longer any need to use Airlink, or Virtual Desktop with installations here and there), the final nail in the coffin for other VR solutions was put literally nailed in, because hate Facebook or not (I really don't like facebook, so true), but still... You gotta admire their extreme drive for VR, and they're lightyears ahead.
So this thing, introducing PCVR (Steam)
I'm still rooting for VR (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Hey! You can't do that! (Score:2)
You can't just disable a feature in Windows!
Working out how to do that and getting rid of it is our job!
Great ideas, no follow through... (Score:1)
You want to know why I never invested in MS Mixed Reality?
I invested in Windows Phone, which was great until they dropped support for it. The absolute *BEST* phone I've ever had.
I had both a Microsoft Band, and a Band 2, which were great until they dropped support for them.
I have been dying for a Hololens to play Minecraft on, but they just refuse to finish development/consumerize it.
I love their products, but they can't seem to stick with them like I do. I bought into Oculus this time around... I have t