Microsoft announced a new partnership with Oculus this week to include its Xbox One wireless controller with every unit of the upcoming Oculus Rift virtual reality headset. However, back in Redmond, Washington, the team behind Microsoft's HoloLens actually used their own headset to watch the Oculus Rift press event in San Francisco.
This was revealed as part of an interview by International Business Times with Microsoft's Xbox head Phil Spencer. When asked how the new partnership with Oculus will affect the development of HoloLens, Spencer said:
"This partnership allows us to focus on a space that's different from them with our Hololens, which has a lot of things still to be figured out. This partnership seemed like the right for me. The whole Hololens team sent me a picture -- they actually watched the briefing with the Hololens on, streaming the picture on the wall. It's like the most surreal thing, but they were all really excited about the show."
The Oculus Rift will also work with the upcoming Windows 10 update to the Xbox One, which will allow users to stream Xbox One games to their PC and watch them on the headset. Spencer stated:
"It's a 2-D display in a 3-D world, so we're not turning all the Xbox games into virtual reality games. But the fact that you get a big screen -- the screen kind of feels like that (Spencer points to a giant projection screen at the event thats about 7 feet by 10 feet) -- and the fact that everything else is nonexistent, everything else is blacked out, your mind's eye is on the screen, it's really a nice, immersive, dark experience. And a lot of the guys back at the office, that's the way they want to play."
Microsoft is expected to talk more about their HoloLens efforts in gaming as part of E3 2015 next week. Windows Central will be attending the event in Los Angeles to bring first-hand reports on Microsoft's announcements.
Source: International Business Times
