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Oooof that's unfortunate, it was the platform for reasonably priced VR systems that weren't made by Facebook (I refuse to acknowledge their rebrand), even if it wasn't the best software...
This is basically another step towards a situation in which your only VR options are either high end Valve offerings or buying into the Facebook ecosystem.
Even then, the high end Valve offerings don't have the content. Meta has been very anticompetitive with all the platform exclusives, and it's hurting VR overall.
I mean, the Oculus exclusives are literally fully funded. They are games that otherwise wouldn't even exist. There are no games that were going to be made for other platforms but were steered to oculus only or anything like that. So how anti-competitive can that really be? Should mario games be on other consoles? Is Nintendo anti-competitive for making first party games?
Facebook/meta is terrible, but they are terrible for real reasons, not fake reasons.
Meta has been buying up game developers so they can have a bunch of exclusives. Yes, I'm assuming that the games by the developers would have been made regardless on other platforms. That might be a big assumption given the market share of the quest.
Yes, Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, etc anticompetitive practices are bad too. They do it to try to lock out competitors, and in doing so they decrease access to the content.
With Meta this hits already established PCVR gaming users hard as they will essentially no longer get new PCVR games if Meta keeps buying up the VR game developers. It's not like they wouldn't be able to support steamvr through openxr/openvr.
Where's Oculus Rift when you need them? I'm still waiting for the 3 to release...
Will Microsoft force uninstall the windows mixed reality portal app needed to even start steam vr? If so how to fully prevent it from doing so without making it a fully offline device. I play sooo much hotdogs horseshoes and hand grenades (h3vr) with a boat load of mods, and not being able to run it because windows mixed reality portal is removed from the system, will make me sad.
So what happens to, for example, the HP reverb g2?
Decades from now I will have to explain what the "3D Objects" folder is to some kid
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The company says Windows Mixed Reality is “deprecated and will be removed in a future release of Windows.” Microsoft first introduced Windows Mixed Reality in 2017 as part of its bid to compete with virtual reality rivals like HTC and Oculus (now owned by Meta).
Windows Mixed Reality served as a portal to games, apps, and other experiences within the VR space.
In addition to the Microsoft HoloLens, other companies, including Acer, Dell, Lenovo, Asus, HP, and Samsung, made mixed reality headsets compatible with Microsoft’s platform.
It doesn’t look like the enterprise-focused HoloLens 2 is going anywhere for now, though, as Microsoft added a free Windows 11 upgrade and several other improvements for the $3,500 headset earlier this year.
HoloLens boss Alex Kipman left last year over allegations of sexual misconduct, and the company later cut 10,000 jobs, many of which affected the workers behind Microsoft’s mixed reality projects, including the now-discontinued AltspaceVR app.
It also started letting Quest users access Office apps and its Xbox Cloud Gaming platform through a partnership with Meta.
The original article contains 248 words, the summary contains 174 words. Saved 30%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
One of my earliest vr experiences was with the blue Acer mixed reality headsets and it did fine at the time. Cost far less than the mainstream headsets from HTC and Oculus too.
Haven't even seen any new WMR headsets for years and thought it was already dead.
HP Reverb G2, this year, last hurrah for WMR
Oh wow, how out of the loop am I. 😆
Hopefully it’s supported for years to come.
I had the first HP WMR headset and as far as I can tell, the G2 has the same damn controllers. The tracking was awful outside of the rather small cone (compared to the Quest 2 and PSVR2 imo) in front of the headset. Did they really never address that or am I just being pessimistic?
This was my experience as well. It worked great if your hands were out in front of you but if you needed to move your arms around (beat saber, any archery game, etc) it just didn't work.
Mixed Reality was a very poor product, so I'm not sad to see it go. I just hope Microsoft doesn't screw owners of headsets that require Windows Mixed Reality for basic functionality.
How was it a poor product? By itself, sure, there wasn't that many VR apps sold on the Microsoft Store, but once plugged into SteamVR, it was another story. WMR offered headsets for every budgets, from the low end to the very high-end and with more flexibility than HTC's Vive and Valve's Index.
but once plugged into SteamVR, it was another story
This was the core of why it was a poor product. It's only job was to pop up, annoy the user, while the user figured out how to minimize it to get to SteamVR.
WMR offered headsets for every budgets
If WMR was simply drivers or optional software it would have been fine all while still offering headsets for all budgets. Instead WMR is a required software which got in the way of actually using the product one bought.
When one plugs in a keyboard, they don't want the manufacturer's software to open on-screen just to use the keyboard, same for mice, same for monitors, same for VR headsets.
Yup. If they leave some minimal process/app that keeps the headsets working with Steam VR, then nothing of value will be lost. It was an underwhelming tech demo and major annoyance.
Was there even ever any use for it, other than using the headsets on Steam?
Nope. It would popup, the user would close it as it did nothing useful, then open SteamVR.
Finally!!