Microsoft is really banking on what they hope to be their next step in innovation, HoloLens. It has now been revealed that HoloLens development and existence had played a key part in Microsoft’s aquisition of Minecraft for $2.5 billion.
A recent interview with Satya Nadella, Chief Executive of Microsoft had with The New York Times revealed that HoloLens has been in development for quite some time and has had over one-hundred people working on it during it’s journey to fruition. Satya went on to mention that the HoloLens was one of the main reasons for purchasing Minecraft;
“Let’s have a game that, in fact, will fundamentally help us change new categories,HoloLens was very much in the works then, and we knew it.”
The New York Times also went on to mention a tech demo of how Minecraft would essentially work on the HoloLens;
“In Minecraft, players can build and destroy structures, sort of like playing virtual Legos. With the HoloLens, the game is no longer confined to a smartphone or a computer screen, though. Players wearing the headset can decorate the surfaces of a room with Minecraft blocks, then destroy them, if they like. In the demonstration Microsoft showed, it was possible to build on a coffee table, then crush it to expose a cave below.”
Minecraft is just one of those family-friendly IP’s and is quite a smart move by Microsoft to reel in families to purchase a HoloLens. If you play Minecraft would the games inclusion of HoloLens warrant a purchase if the price is right? Or do you feel it is still too early for virtual reality.
