There has been lots of speculation going around regarding Microsoft"s upcoming gaming console dubbed "Project Scorpio", expected in 2017. The company described it as the "most powerful console ever", touting 4K gaming, VR support and exclusives. While not much else is known about the mysterious console, Xbox executive Phil Spencer has shed some light on his thoughts on the state of VR, in relation to Project Scorpio.
In an interview with Stevivor, Spencer stated that while he is likes VR and thinks that it"ll find its spot in gaming, he"s not sold on it just yet. He went on to say that he has used lots of VR headsets, including the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and PlayStation VR, he thinks that developers haven"t perfected the art of making VR games yet. Spencer said that:
What experiences do you put in people’s hands to have a long term engagement? Most of these things I’m playing now feel like demos and experiments, which I actually think it’s absolutely the right thing to have happened. That’s not a criticism at all, but should be happening. But I think it will take time.
With that being said, he stated that this doesn"t mean that Microsoft isn"t thinking about the potential of VR. Project Scorpio is a VR-capable device even if it takes several years for VR technology to hit mainstream.
The executive also expressed concern over the current state of VR systems, which require tethered solutions and wearing headsets over the head. With regards to whether HoloLens might be able to bridge this gap, Spencer went on to say that:
In the long run, we need untethered solutions. You need to have the compute capability not be wired to my display that’s on my head. That means I either have some kind of high-bandwidth wireless HDMI or I have compute here. With the HoloLens we’ve chosen to put compute in the HMD itself, so it’s right there. The other thing I think most people who look along in this technology is a mixed reality world where I have a head mounted display that’s able to go from a fully enclosed, opaque world that is VR to a fully transparent world where I’m seeing augmentation in my world makes sense. I should have one device that spans both.
With HoloLens we picked where we think the tech’s going to be in ten years, because we see a lot of people doing great work in the VR space today. We’re working with most of them on Windows to make sure those devices run well on Windows, so let them go do the stuff they’re going to do in VR.
You can check out the full interview by hitting the source link below.
Source: Stevivor