A developer's kit for Microsoft's "mixed reality" platform will be available at the beginning of 2016, the company says. HoloLens Development Edition will cost $3,000, and developers can submit an application to order theirs today. The kit will ship to developers in the first quarter of next year. (The company didn't give a hard date just "Q1".)
The dev kit gives a peek at the capabilities of the final consumer version. It's fully untethered, with no wires and no extra mobile devices, just the oversized goggle-like headset. Sensors in the headset map your environment and sense the movements of your body and your hands. It's important to note that HoloLens is an augmented reality device, not a virtual reality device like the Oculus Rift or Gear VR. Wearing it, the user sees beasties and space-bugs crawling around in his or her real surroundings.
The announcement came during Microsoft's media event in New York today, and the news was prefaced by a new demonstration of HoloLens's capabilities. The game looks very very cool, but of course such things always demo well on a stage.
