As far as VR and Microsoft. The business case is just not there. Which is why all resources were shifted to AR , and Mixed Reality just allows MS to have a way to keep the door open for when VR is worth it to them business wise. XBOX is a subset of Microsoft, which people love to forget. AR is where the money is and will be in the future.
AR is mobile , while VR is a gaming console. I dont need to tell you the difference in potential profit margins.
VR does have huge issues with being anti social. Humans are social by default. Often core gamers forget this, big business is not interested in catering to niche core audiences as a primary focus. Sony has done quite a bit of work with VR, and figuring out experiences where others can participate without use of a headset in the same room. Oculus has also done quite a bit in pushing VR as a educational tool, however it only really works if everyone has a headset which is just not feasible, hell we cant even guarantee every student get the books they need.
AR has had similar issues. If you read research done by MIT and other schools decades ago , one of the many things holding back AR is social related.
Oculus also did alot of work around sharing VR experiences with non VR devices. Where AR has a huge advantage is mobile, far less fidelity and resources needed, less worries over making people ill, and huge huge advertisement opportunities . Early Hololens, social was a huge issue and what made them shift away from consumer for now.
VR also has huge accessibility issues. Not just cost, and no hardware and interaction standards which are issues in itself but there are just a large subset of people who will never be able to really enjoy VR for various reasons. No one has the bandwidth or resources to focus on these issues, when AR just looks like a much better case overall. AR is also much cheaper to develop for, much more expensive to equip a dev team with multiple VR headsets, etc.
Streaming will also surpass VR, as a standard as it just has much larger reach and focus on cloud by many big players will continue to push this. Phil has limited resources, and needs to stay aligned with Microsoft. So much of these decisions have been made for him.
XBOX will continue to invest in cloud because Azure is the future of MS - see Jedi contract,
XBOX will continue to invest in services because that is the future of MS per Satya ( note Office, Windows, all have become services)
XBOX will continue to support AR efforts because of hololens , see recent military contract
XBOX will do anything to support those 3 pillars as they align back to MS.
VR just doesnt fit in that plan at the moment. Things can change quarterly, but even Oculus expected to be further along.
I know many people may not agree but gaming has always been hugely social.
The easier a game was to share the more popular it got. Even something like solitaire, can be observed and thats super key in growing a market.
One of the reasons gaming has seen such a huge rise in popularity, is related to how accessible gaming is these days, how easy it is
to share various experiences both in person and remotely.
