Is Microsoft abandoning virtual reality forever? This new announcement is not a good sign.

But this news does not come as a big surprise. The HoloLens 3 was never released, and no new devices have been released to the Microsoft ecosystem in the past three years. What's worse is that the company has partnered with Meta to make some of its products available in augmented reality, especially with its cloud gaming service coming to the Quest Store.

Its dedicated VR teams have also been significantly reduced. Of the thousands of layoffs implemented in 2023, a large portion of them concerned employees working on Windows Mixed Reality, AltspaceVR, and MRTK, projects that are now history. However, the company is expected to continue developing projects for niche markets for some time to come.

So Microsoft has added more murkiness to an otherwise murky VR horizon. It is abandoning the bulk of its projects in this sector, while Apple, in turn, is preparing to put its feet into the mix in the coming weeks. Perhaps we are facing a situation similar to what happened with iPhone or ARM processors for computers, where Apple succeeds where Redmond was ahead. Response in the coming months.