Oculus Rift VS Microsoft Hololens—Augmented Reality Against Virtual Reality

Mar 21
10:42

2016

S M Enayet Karim

S M Enayet Karim

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It’s a wonder that after so many years that humanity goes through amazing technological breakthroughs, AR and VR are just starting to resurface. With a failed experiment from Google, namely Google Glass, it was a downhill battle for augmented reality. Many projects that were supposed to enhance that technology ended up getting canceled in fear of another big failure.

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However,Oculus Rift VS Microsoft Hololens—Augmented Reality Against Virtual Reality Articles Microsoft is ready to take that risk. Getting away from the slick design of Google Glass, and following the recent headset trend, Microsoft Hololens certainly looks stylish, edgy and out of this world. But, in my humble opinion, this is where everything good about it stop.

This technology aims to become a helpful gadget to every kind of user out there. From the esteemed developer to the casual gamer (let’s not forget that Microsoft has acquired the rights to Minecraft for almost a year now), and Hololens is trying to catch bits and pieces of every possible community. After all, it’s not easy to have Oculus monopolize virtual reality in your platform, when all you have to show is a “development kit” of a very good idea.

Wireless, and full of augmented reality possibilities, there are some things that stop it from being perfect. For example, a very narrow field of view is one of the biggest problems that this headset poses at this moment. However, since it’s an unfinished model, it’s still too early to say if that will change in the recent future.

Oculus Rift, on the other hand, has no augmented reality capabilities, and no plans to get any soon. It’s not that VR isn’t enough for Oculus VR, but probably the fact that we’re looking at two different kind of technologies. Oculus Rift is designed to do VR really well, while Hololens is designed to do something entirely different. So, in the end, there are not many things that we can compare between those two.

Now, for the gaming scene, I’d say that it’s Oculus Rift has the upper hand, with famous titles already boasting VR support, even before the actual hardware is released. Microsoft has an army of studios backing it up, making development content an easy job, but not the first priority of Microsoft. Xbox One is the flagship behind Microsoft’s effort at the gaming department, and since the console’s launch was a bit rough everything since then has been an uphill ride.

In the end, the two companies managed to come to a great compromise. Microsoft is currently working with Oculus VR into bringing a great aspect of both worlds, consoles and PC, into one experience. Every Oculus Rift will ship with an Xbox One controller that will be able to offer an easier way to experience VR unobstructed.

Until then, keep checking our site for everything VR related. Microsoft and Oculus VR are sure to give us even more technological wonders in the future, and we’ll make sure to inform you about everything that comes up in the meantime.