Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Admits Sales of 'Expensive' HoloLens 'Not Huge', Says More Versions Are Planned (betanews.com)
Microsoft is not giving away too much about the sales figures for HoloLens but goes as far as saying it is "in thousands, not hundreds of thousands". From a report: Speaking at educational technology event the Bett Show in London on Thursday, Roger Walkden, Senior Director and Commercial Lead of HoloLens, acknowledged that the price tag was partly responsible for the small number of sales. Interestingly, though, Microsoft is not bothered by what could be seen as disappointing sales, despite the fact that the company seems to be betting big on HoloLens by adding headset settings in recent Windows 10 Insider builds. [...] But for anyone who feels let down by what HoloLens has to offer, there is good news: "this is version one, and there will be future versions."
Class action lawsuit!!!
Holocause
It doesn't matter how many they sell as long as their is a very hefty premium mark up. This is the kind of space that Apple has dominated traditionally and Microsoft has wanted to gain a foothold in.
Doesn't sell huge numbers.
News at 11.
Pence Admits Sales of 'Expensive' Wall 'Not Yuuge', Says More Versions Are Planned. Stay tuned for the weather.
The first hololens was a dev kit and technology incubator, now I'm not saying it will ever be a block buster, game changing item, but I think AR has more uses that VR.
I wonder how many dev kits Nintendo sold for the original NES or Sony for the original playstation.
I have a Hololens and while it's cool, it's still pretty rough. The field of view is ridiculously small and the price tag is way too high.
I have a lot of experience developing on mobile and embedded devices and find the MS tool chain to be a pain in the ass. I do admit that I'm pretty baised against MS for just about anything though.
I have a meeting with a defense contractor next month about a possible project using the Hololens so it might be useful for something. If not, it will sit on the shelf next to my Powerglove.
They aren't in it for a quick buck. They want to build up the ecosystem and the technology.
I have tried the hololens for corporate use and it's impressive but it have some major drawbacks. The field of view is very small and needs to increase ninefold for the hololens to be really useful outside niche applications. The hololens also have limited use outdoor, it's lasers have limited detection range and it doesn't work in Sunlight.
Right now, VR seems more useful but that might change.
I thought it was obviously still in beta.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Roger Walkden, Senior Director and Commercial Lead of HoloLens, acknowledged that the price tag was partly responsible for the small number of sales.
Up until fairly recently, most news about the HoloLens seemed to present it as some sort of far-off research project, with little hope of a commercial product you could actually ever buy. That impression has probably contributed to a lack of hype and development of third-part applications, too.
It's not the price of the thing. If it was 5K per eye rolling at 120 fps .. it would have sold at $1000 each. VR done properly would be a mega hit. The current generation of VR is vomit inducing. It should never have been released. Oculus, Sony, HTC, and Microsoft have killed VR for a generation or two. We probably won't see VR emerge again for another 25 years. They could have avoided this by waiting 5 years until we had the technology to do it. Why release something before it works?
What if the Ford Model T didn't have brakes? Automobiles would have been banned, the public would have gotten disgusted. Normally I am a libertarian but fuck that, we need government intervention to stop VR headsets from being released. Call the UN, call the FBI .. the FTC. The World Health Organization, the CDC .. I don't give a fuck. Ban VR for 10 years so that the technology can be ready.
The thing costs a fortune. And even if it didn't, there are some pretty obvious limitations to what you can do with AR especially when it requires wearing a dorky helmet.
Doesn't sell huge numbers.
News at 11.
This. It's intentionally priced to keep end users away to keep it fairly low-key while devs are figuring out what they can do with it and MS is working the bugs out. Did anyone expect them to sell hundreds of thousands of them?
Is making every story a hyperbolic click-bait crapfest the new normal now across the board? I mean, it's been building with politics but it seems that it's becoming pervasive in tech reporting now as well.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
Thanks, Microsoft!
The HoloLens is targeted towards developers, not consumers.
Microsoft HoloLens Development Edition - $3,000.00
Microsoft HoloLens Commercial Suite - $5,000.00
The HoloLens is a research project for "Room 101" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_101) types of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques.
....."Is making every story a hyperbolic click-bait crapfest the new normal now across the board?"
I would say we have long past that time and we are all worse off for it.
First off, not actual holograms. So stop calling them as such.
Second: that field-of-view! Horribly limited versus what they imply you see.
I love the idea, but it's a half-baked idea.
You really have two choices when it comes to new environments like this:
1)You and a handful of picked producers come up with amazing intial content for the device and sell it with perhaps a limited initial niche.
2)You crowdsource developing content to the masses and make it easy for developers to write awesome apps, and count on that converting into sales.
It costs way too much for route 2- you really need to be sub-1K. The costs are in line for route 1, but then you aren't usually selling anything to the public at all- at least not until the content is done. They don't seem to know what they're doing here... or they plan on this being a tech demo for a few iterations.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Just as they were not bothered by poor sales in the mobile space? Consider yourself middle-fingered, Microsoft.
I still don't see the use of such a gadget. As it stands right now, 3D TVs are out of production. Google Glass is gone. We all have multiple devices with multiple operating systems, with data thrown at us all the time in 2D. I don't know that, in general, people can handle much more than we have right now. Is there really a market for this thing beyond some niche video gamers or maybe some kind of high-end flight trainers?
For me the price is a large factor, but also being first gen tech. Version 2 should be all manna and honey, right? RIGHT?!
Not only the price is insane, you cannot resell or rent it out either. And there's no warranty. At least in America since in civilised countries those types of EULAs are illegal.
So basically if you Buy one for 3000$ It turns out it's a broken piece of garbage then you're fucked, you cannot even rent it out for others to form similar opinion. that's why there are no reviews, who'd buy such thing for such price and then throw it into garbage?
Sales not huge - or in the world of Trump, the greatest selling product of all time!