Microsoft Continues to Look to the Future with HoloLens
Yesterday, Silent Protagonist reported on how Microsoft is ensuring that the Project Scorpio will be released earlier this year, thanks to the magic of time travel. Channelling Christopher Lloyd, Phil Spencer showed us the future. And what a wondrous future it is, a magical utopia brought about by Microsoft.
However, while all eyes are on Project Scorpio to bring about our futuristic utopia, HoloLens inventor Terry Myerson talked up the peripheral in a recent discussion with Bloomberg. Myerson declared that the smart phone is dead, to be replaced by HoloLens-like devices — with the most HoloLens-like device being HoloLens. After seeing the future, we can confirm that this is indeed the case.
Where smart phones allow users to make calls, access the internet, play games and take photos of their significant other in compromising positions, HoloLens allows users to make calls via Skype, access the internet via their Xbox One Scorpio, use it as a screen to play games on their Xbox One Scorpio, and add some augmented reality effects to make it look like their significant other is in a compromising position.
Where smart phones are portable and fit within a pocket, HoloLens is a bulky headset that must be worn at all times. It’s not the slimline build that the world got thanks to Google Glass, and this bulk signifies to the world that you’re using AR to go about your day, rather than try to hide it and make strangers think you’re stalking them.
While you can take HoloLens with you wherever you go, don’t expect it to work. It must be plugged into your Xbox One Scorpio, or possibly your Windows 10 PC since Microsoft still doesn’t like exclusives. To benefit from HoloLens, you need to be plugged in, losing all the mobility that a mobile phone affords you.
However, could Myerson be right? Will Project Scorpio be the smart phone killer the world has been looking for? Yes. With 1.5 billion smart phones expected to be sold this year (though, disappointingly, we can now confirm that only 1.45 billion will be sold), HoloLens has completely cannibalised the market. In this future, people are staying at home, sitting in front of their Xbox One Scorpios, ignoring the world around them. 2018 will see 1.8 billion HoloLenses sold, but Microsoft doesn’t care about sales — with everybody destined for a future of living in front of their Xbox One Scorpio, audience engagement will be through the roof.
