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Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

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Re: Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

#131

Post by troymc »

echelon wrote: post #108
dougmwne wrote: post #28

Shutting down AltSpace should be a loud warning bell for Meta’s Horizon Worlds. Horizon is basically a badly executed AltSpace. AltSpace was super niche, but some artists and marginalized people seemed to find a home there. It was like an odd cross between a digital Burning Man and a BIPOC LGTBQ+ neurodivergent support group. I had a memorable conversation during the height of the pandemic with an older gay man whose…

VRChat is winning VR. Despite there being a few alternatives (Neos, Chillout, etc.), nothing reaches the scale of VRChat's community, platform, and developer ecosystem. Whoever buys VRChat wins VR.

There's also Rec Room, with a similar number of monthly active users.

More numbers can be found at https://www.metaversed.consulting/blog/metaverse-universe-q1...

Re: Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

#132

Post by tessierashpool »

generalizations wrote: post #104
pronlover723 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one can touch you but they can hurt you in the same way people hurt others online all the time. Verbal abuse, name calling, derogatory remarks, unwanted solicitation, etc...

> and you can leave at any time

"if people are trying to chase you away, you can always leave."

not a solution per se

Re: Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

#133

Post by rchaud »

sys_64738 wrote: post #65
noAnswer wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...then come out of nowhere...like they did with the iPhone Everyone and their dog knew the iPhone was coming and what it was about.

The form factor redefined the cellphone standard form factor. Apple would do the same for VR.

I greatly doubt it. Everybody already had a cellphone in 2007, and Apple pricing it at $200 with carrier subsidies tipped the scales in its favour when it came to rapid adoption. There are no such discounts likely with their headset; the estimates say it will be $1500 minimum. And unlike a phone, a headset is not an essential device that goes with you wherever. So it won't create the same kind of excitement the iPhone did.

Re: Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

#134

Post by FridgeSeal »

baby wrote: post #15
sys_64738 wrote: post #5

Every business will can projects in their portfolio when belt tightening. VR and its multitude of derivative just isn't a core competency of M$. If anybody is to win this space then it'll be Apple IMO.

You mean Meta right? Otherwise it just sounds like you haven’t been following the field.

Surely nobody really takes…whatever Meta has been doing in VR seriously?

Their VR demos look awful, last report I heard was employees didn’t even want to use it or touch it, oculus has done basically nothing except burn customer goodwill.

Re: Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

#135

Post by massysett »

SoftTalker wrote: post #121
skohan wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems obvious to me AI will be the next major disruption. Radically decreasing the need for human labor has an obvious productive advantage while there is no evidence people would prefer to leave reality.

> Radically decreasing the need for human labor has an obvious productive advantage while there is no evidence people would prefer to leave reality. When people have nothing to do they might prefer to leave reality....

Tell someone in the 18th century that 200 years later 2 percent of the labor force will work in agriculture, and they would swear that we must have nothing to do.

Re: Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

#136

Post by troymc »

skohan wrote: post #118
jwsteigerwalt wrote: post #107

The reality is that it was always unlikely that Microsoft (or Meta, or Google, or Apple…) would be able to create disruption in AR, VR, etc. on the magnitude of the initial iPhone release. Better to keep their powder dry to acquire the startups that potentially can.

It seems obvious to me AI will be the next major disruption. Radically decreasing the need for human labor has an obvious productive advantage while there is no evidence people would prefer to leave reality.

Headsets might be a niche market, but "leaving reality" is a huge market if you count video games, movies, TV, novels, short stories, plays, musicals, ...

There's a story I love to recount on this topic. A dad asked his kid why they preferred reading books to watching movies. The kid said, "because they have better pictures."

(And yes, AI can write stories, so the markets aren't orthogonal.)

Re: Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

#137

Post by goldcd »

cududa wrote: post #95
dougmwne wrote: post #28

Shutting down AltSpace should be a loud warning bell for Meta’s Horizon Worlds. Horizon is basically a badly executed AltSpace. AltSpace was super niche, but some artists and marginalized people seemed to find a home there. It was like an odd cross between a digital Burning Man and a BIPOC LGTBQ+ neurodivergent support group. I had a memorable conversation during the height of the pandemic with an older gay man whose…

I suspect Microsoft knows full well that 343 wouldn't be capable of producing a "metaverse". Activision though? With a sort of contiguous open world standardize "game engine" used by all the properties? Now we're talking real metaverse tech.

Just need to download the 90 gig client, then I'll join your Teams 2 call.

Re: Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

#138

Post by nonethewiser »

dougmwne wrote: post #28

Shutting down AltSpace should be a loud warning bell for Meta’s Horizon Worlds. Horizon is basically a badly executed AltSpace. AltSpace was super niche, but some artists and marginalized people seemed to find a home there. It was like an odd cross between a digital Burning Man and a BIPOC LGTBQ+ neurodivergent support group. I had a memorable conversation during the height of the pandemic with an older gay man whose…

[flagged]

Re: Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

#140

Post by thewebcount »

loeg wrote: post #40
javajosh wrote: post #31

It's funny I keep thinking about how the same people might work on the same thing but with different terms. As a W2 employee you make great money, but your upside is capped. Your downside is never capped, of course. As a founder you make okay money, you have better upside. But the same corp that fired you will invest that money with the VC that funded you. So, either way, the capital flows through the corp to you, an…

> Your downside is never capped, of course. Surely your downside is capped at zero?

Yeah, when I think uncapped downside, I think of shorting something that can go up any amount and being on the hook for that. When I think of losing a job, I think of loss of income (including benefits like healthcare (at least in the US) and stock grants), possibly loss of networking with colleagues (though social media exists), and not a lot more. So I’m with you. I have no idea what they’re talking about and would appreciate a detailed explanation.
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