At the big Microsoft event held in New York, the company made its keen interest in virtual and augments reality, among other thing quite evident. Interestingly, the company also said that third-party vendors will now offer ‘affordable’ virtual reality (VR) headsets for Windows 10 PCs.
Acer, Asus, Lenovo, HP, and Dell are said to the companies that will begin offering the headsets soon, starting at $299 (roughly Rs 20,000). The headsets will offer users the experience of reality content like 3D version that has been customised in the new Paint 3D app on desktop.
“By supporting the launch of these new devices, Microsoft wants to avoid the cost and complexity of powerful VR headsets like the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive, and even Microsoft’s own HoloLens augmented reality (AR) headset. And because they’ll work with Windows 10 PCs, they might not require all the high-end specs you’d find on a powerful desktop VR rig — a laptop may be just fine on its own,” VentureBeat explains.
Furthermore, these headsets are said to be the first to come with inside-out six-degrees-of-freedom (6DOF) sensors. “We are building Windows for each of us (and enabling) people to experience computing in new ways,” Chief Executive Satya Nadella said at a New York event to launch the new products.
According to reports, revenue for the Windows and computing unit fell 1.8 percent last quarter to $9.29 billion. It forecasts division sales of as much as $11.6 billion for this quarter, well below year-earlier results of $12.7 billion. However, Microsoft is riding high on its fast-growing cloud business, which companies can use to host their websites, apps or data. Shares of Microsoft have doubled since August 2013, with Nadella restoring investor confidence by focusing on mobile and cloud computing rather than PCs.