So the entire opinion of "Microsoft leaving as a field starts growing" rests on the Vision Pro coming out and therefore VR growing, but we should not question the fact that Vision Pro is unquestionable proof VR is growing in this thread...
No. VR is not growing. Apple was supposed to put out Vision Pro in 2021 when everyone was aboard the VR hypetrain, and AI was not in the public's mindset. Vision Pro is not the VR industry growing, it's an echo from yet another dead VR hypecycle.
Well the metadiscussion upends the whole discussion.
Microsoft should've wrapped up their HoloLens research and offered a nice low-volume product for researches, engineers, and designers. We need such products, and it's a shame they abandoned it.
But they keep trying to find the "next big thing". And VR is absolutely not the "next big thing". So if they only see value in that, they were right to cut losses and move on to focus their resources on other things like AI.
I rather agree than chasing mass-market VR (with "mass" defined as "the new smartphone") is a huge part of the problem.
However I do think VR potentially has a large niche to fill amoung consumers, hobbyists and various semi-professional roles. Something bigger than you're suggesting but smaller than say - consoles or smartphones.
Whether this is a niche big enough for Microsoft, I genuinely don't know. I think it probably is - but it would require aggregating several quite diverse market segments.
No. VR is not growing. Apple was supposed to put out Vision Pro in 2021 when everyone was aboard the VR hypetrain, and AI was not in the public's mindset. Vision Pro is not the VR industry growing, it's an echo from yet another dead VR hypecycle.