Microsoft Pulls Plug on Mixed Reality in New Windows 11 Update 23
Microsoft has discontinued Windows Mixed Reality support in its latest Windows 11 update, rendering a number of VR headsets obsolete. The move, reported by UploadVR, affects devices from major manufacturers. An estimated 80,000 users will lose access to their headsets upon upgrading to Windows 11 24H2. UploadVR adds: Despite the name, all Windows MR headsets were actually VR-only, and are compatible with most SteamVR content via Microsoft's SteamVR driver. The first Windows MR headsets arrived in late 2017 from Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Samsung, aiming to compete with the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive that had launched a year earlier. They were the first consumer VR products to deliver inside-out positional tracking, for both the headset and controllers.
All the original Windows MR OEMs except Samsung used the same cheap fixed panels LCD design with fixed lenses, while the Samsung Odyssey had IPD adjustment and OLED panels - the same OLED panels that would be featured in HTC Vive Pro and Oculus Quest a year and a half later. Even though the LCD headsets were sold for as low as $200 at times, and even though Samsung offered (for the time) high-resolution OLED panels, Windows MR headsets failed to ever reach widespread adoption amongst PC VR gamers. On the Steam Hardware Survey Windows MR peaked at around 10% of SteamVR usage share in 2019, and now sits around 3.5%. The move follows Microsoft recently discontinuing the HoloLens 2.
All the original Windows MR OEMs except Samsung used the same cheap fixed panels LCD design with fixed lenses, while the Samsung Odyssey had IPD adjustment and OLED panels - the same OLED panels that would be featured in HTC Vive Pro and Oculus Quest a year and a half later. Even though the LCD headsets were sold for as low as $200 at times, and even though Samsung offered (for the time) high-resolution OLED panels, Windows MR headsets failed to ever reach widespread adoption amongst PC VR gamers. On the Steam Hardware Survey Windows MR peaked at around 10% of SteamVR usage share in 2019, and now sits around 3.5%. The move follows Microsoft recently discontinuing the HoloLens 2.
From one bandwagon to the next... (Score:4, Interesting)
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When share price pumping is the main driver of wealth, fads are the only thing left that can achieve the goal. It's not like running a profitable business is going to satisfy Wall Street.
Re:From one bandwagon to the next... (Score:5, Funny)
When it comes to Wall Street, success is any failure that you can then sell to someone else.
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Businesses that would prefer avoiding some blu
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Actually, if you work at a company where the compensation is at least partially in stock, the stock price does indeed translate to wealth for the individual.
Startups definitely fall into this category, as do companies such as Microsoft.
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Stock price doesn't represent wealth, merely what people value an ownership stake in a company at. The wealth is entirely in what a company actually produces and the valuation of that can be wildly off or entirely speculative. Anyone who just wants a good place to park money for retirement or isn't a degenerate gambler chasing the high of a big payday should just invest in an index fund. The individual companies may be up or down, but collectively they're up. Businesses that would prefer avoiding some blue blood breathing down their neck about quarterly profits should just stay privately owned. Cancel the IPO and don't sell your soul to the devil. The existence of hustlers, pumps, etc. in the public market shouldn't be surprising. Someone will always try to be the one to part the fool from his money.
The amount of resources we pour into making sure Wall Street is happy in this country is absolutely astounding to me. If we see society turn half that much enthusiasm into solving some of the very real problems we face we probably wouldn't have that many problems left. But? The owners make the rules. The rest of society somehow gets stuck propping them up for it. Makes zero sense to me, but money and greed are the only motivation that our society runs on. We have no other motives, and zero other aspirations
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Hype is good for short-term profits. Obviously, long-term, you really piss off your users and, as soon as they have a good alternative, they will be gone. All that keeps MS alive at this time is lack of a good alternative.
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It's a throw-away society, full of throw-away ideas because, in the end, it's just a bunch of throw-away people throwing themselves away into the technological garbage can.
I have one and still use it. (Score:2)
I guess I'm going to be explicitly preventing my windows 11 computer from updating.
People in general (not /.ers) STILL (Score:2)
...don't want to wear shit on their face.
VR/AR will eventually take flight when it's Black Mirror-like, no shit on your face.
Might require a neural connection. Hope I'm dead by then.
Installable device drivers? (Score:4, Insightful)
One value of a mature operating system is that it provides support for hardware classes via baked-in drivers.
In "the early days", every modem maker had their own drivers on a floppy or cd, same for every cd-dvd player, every printer, every scanner, every expansion board to add a serial or usb port, etc. Then, authoritative standards are developed, and the OS (Win, Mac, Linux, whatever) adds in such standard support. A hardware vendor then merely needs to comply with said specification when making and distributing their product, allowing their products to interface the hardware and OS without much fuss.
As I do not own or use VR/AR items, I have no personal experience, but the article makes it sound like hardware vendors have come to depend on such "public access" drivers or support in Windows, but now it will be gone. But, that shouldn't be the end of the world for the device makers or their customers who own legacy devices. Just write and distribute a user-installable device driver.
Buy a gizmo, get the drivers with it. It used to be not just standard practice, but it was a great art - and a Wild West mess as well - that was the norm as little as 20 years ago. It makes me wonder if some of the hardware companies still retain in-house talent to write a low level device driver.
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... that shouldn't be the end of the world for the device makers or their customers who own legacy devices. Just write and distribute a user-installable device driver.
And hope that users are sophisticated enough to figure out how to make Windows accept an unsigned driver.
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article makes it sound like hardware vendors have come to depend on such "public access" drivers or support in Windows
Yep, which is the reason why most of them cannot support anything other than Windows. (Just go check the number of headsets that are fully supported in Linux FOSS drivers or not.) Hell the same applies to the other platforms as well. (Although that's more vendor lock in and planned obsolescence than anything else.)
The main issue with these things is the lack of geometry data. Most are just screens with a few standard HID devices behind a USB / bluetooth / wifi / etc. bridge. So these are endpoints are ty
Built to Last (Score:2)
Although we live in an age where most tech gear gets replaced every 3 years or so, my mind is still wired to make purchasing decisions as if I am going to keep it for 10 years or more.
I like WMR (Score:2)
Have an HP G2 and really like it. No plans on getting rid of it or downgrading to windows 11. Tracking is good and the display is nice although lens has a crummy sweet spot.
This was like the only HMD platform left you didn't need an account to use and OpenXR shims for OVR etc work fine for all my apps. Yea the MS crap is annoying but nothing a few outbound rules in group policy editor can't fix.
The way of working nobody was hype to use. (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't Recall a feature more deserving of this fate.
And Some Wonder... (Score:4, Insightful)
...why people go to great lengths to download movies, music, audiobooks, etc., much to the consternation of the control freaks in charge of it and paying megabucks for DRM to keep everyone from doing it, when all of a sudden some feature of some service somewhere goes away, and the audiobook / movie / TV rerun / tune they wanted to enjoy is gone forever. One really gets tired of seeing the NetFlix "Leaving Next Week" page, and more than tired of some software I've bought in the past, that requires manufacturer server response to install, failing to install due to the absence of said manufacturer server. Manufacturer bankrupt or just attempting to wring more bucks out of someone that thought he's paid all that he ever needs to pay, it engenders the end-run around the DRM. They have to do better in all things, including the DRM that gets hacked repeatedly.
And not much was lost... (Score:2)
Honestly, the demand really isn't there for these things. For most people, the novelty wears off and the extra effort needed to work with these devices just becomes too much of a hassle.
If there was any productivity or business angle that worked, Microsoft would have stuck it out. It just isn't there.
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I happen to be a fan of VR but it is so fucking fiddly and tedious. If you have less than an hour to play VR you might as well not even bother because it could be between 5 minutes and a half hour before you're actually in your game.
On top of that some percentage of the population can't use it period.
On top of that if you do anything physical you need to clean everything when you're done.