Re: Price @DrXym
You seem wedded to your initial post despite all the flaws in it. In response to your points:
>>Even if we were to say the hololens is more complex, that still doesn't justify the honking disparity in the price of the kit or that its a barrier of entry
Firstly lets dispense with the weasel words. There's no "even if..." The HoloLens IS more complex than Oculus Rift. The Oculus is a display that you connect a GPU up to. The HoloLens is far more than a display. It has high end processor, GPU, a custom-designed chip for integrating the input from its camera with sound signals (which it has tiny speakers for rather than normal headphones as it's designed to augment ambient sounds) and movement, et al. It uses Kinect technology to handle gesture recognition and the software handles interaction of the AR objects with real-world physical objects. Just attempting to equate the two betrays a wilful bias. As to "barrier to entry", honestly $3000 is peanuts to all but the amateur developer. Even a small development house will eat that easily.
>>And if this disparity carries over into production then woe betide them. VR will be a hard enough sell (which IMO will fail). Something costing more again isn't going to do any better.
Again, this wilful ignorance in conflating VR with AR. Different technologies and different purposes. I don't think VR will fail, btw. For games it is amazing. But that's an aside. The point is that being able to casually share what you're seeing with an expert or colleague somewhere remote and also have them drawing arrows or highlighting things in your vision as one small example of how AR will be used, is not the same category as playing Elite Dangerous in VR for example. There is no basis to say "well if it costs £300 to play a game in VR, a doctor certainly wouldn't pay twice that to be able to conference with the hospital consultant when examining a patient". It's an utterly nonsensical argument that makes me question just how stupid you can be.
>>Oh you mean like a phone? It doesn't justify the cost. Furthermore, if it is more like a super-light computer it bodes ill for the retail price of this thing if/when it finally sells
Yes, like a phone. Many people buy subsidised phones on contract and don't look at the actual full price. An iPhone 6 unlocked costs around £550. Now imagine that instead of being a mature product in mass production by the million, it was a limited run thing not even pre-release and they'd only made 20,000 of the things. How much do you think it would cost then? Again, your analogies are dreadful and contrived only to try and damn the fact that the HoloLens development kit costs $3,000 which really isn't that much. It's even in the reach of home developers if they really want it, let alone actual companies. You have no idea how this sector works at all. Either that or you're hopelessly biased and think everyone else here is an idiot.
And it it wasn't when DK 1 and DK 2 were released. It's not a valid point.
Okay, you think you can make statements about final costs of HoloLens from an early beta and you're justifying that by comparisons to a different product in a different category which, despite what you say actually didn't start off at the same price as it happens. Oculus began with a $2.5m kickstarter to front-load it with cash. Those who contributed less than $300 subsidised those that paid more. But that's minor details which I shouldn't even bother correcting because it takes away from the point that your fundamental approach is wrong.
>>"Denigrating the Oculus doesn't remove the point that their dev kit is and has been 1/10th of this thing."
Okay, I am NOT denigrating the Oculus in any way or form. It's great. I think it will be a big success. I also think it will be a huge boost to the GPU industry (especially AMD who sorely need it). Do NOT put words into my mouth. Pointing out that they are very different products with different technologies and goals is NOT denigrating anything. Do NOT pretend that you are somehow defending Oculus against HoloLens. All you are doing is making silly comparisons that harm both.
>>Microsoft is trying to pitch this thing at games - witness various demos they've made of it for that purpose, e.g. minecraft video. In fact they're on record as justifying buying Minecraft for hololens. And their plans include XBox One front and centre and it's hard to imagine that the device would possibly succeed or achieve mass market sales otherwise.
Hard to imagine for you, maybe. I can think of dozens of non-game uses for HoloLens and MS have been demonstrating such uses. Yes, that includes games. It is not limited to games. And again, you're hopelessly muddled in your thinking and floundering around for ways to make Oculus and HoloLens sound like they're attempting the same thing. Games for HoloLens wont be the same as games for Oculus. AR is not VR and I don't see a lot of overlap in terms of how games will make use of them. Imagine doing a space simulator or first person shooter in AR. It's a nonsense idea - you'd be watching semi-transparent people running around overlaid on your walls and desk which would be swinging around you with no connection to the world you were playing in. But no, because MS want to have Minecraft playable on your carpet, or have several friends sitting around the dining room table playing a real time strategy game on it, your limited brain goes "but these and FPS and Simulators are all games - therefore Oculus and HoloLens are similar. MUST POST ON REGISTER!"!
There are few people on this forum as stupid as you.