On last March, there were rumors which said that Microsoft
would prepare a special game for HoloLens. If you saw the HoloLens
demonstration video in last January, we could guess that one of the games was
Minecraft.
Apparently our guess was not wrong. Along with a series of
new Xbox One games they announced on E3 2015 stage, Microsoft also demonstrated
how cool playing Minecraft using HoloLens.
Thanks to the use of a special camera that's connected with
HoloLens, we could see Minecraft in the form of a hologram. In the
demonstration session, two representatives of Microsoft explained how this
technology worked. One of representatives
played the Minecraft using Microsoft Surface tablet, and another one wearing
HoloLens.
Initially, the user of HoloLens only tethered the Minecraft
screen on the wall, but after that he would be able to see the virtual world placed
on the top of a table. At that point, the HoloLens user would become the ruler
of Minecraft world.
He could explore the virtual world with a variety of
gestures, and then manipulated the objects using the voice commands. Yes, voice
commands! He would feel like an ancient god who could throw a lightning just by
shouting "Lightning strike!"
Interestingly, the Minecraft for HoloLens could be played in
multiplayer mode. Thus, the HoloLens user could observe the activities of other
players not only from the first person perspective, but also from the
standpoint of a god as described above.
From a technical perspective, HoloLens seems able to render
the Minecraft virtual world very well. Nevertheless, we must remember that
Minecraft itself doesn't require a high hardware specification. We still have
to see HoloLens ability to render games with modern graphics class.
The combination of Minecraft and HoloLens looks very ideal.
The gameplay that's bought by Microsoft for $ 2.5 billion looks like the
hologram version of Lego.
So far, there has been no information about the HoloLens
marketing schedule. Even so, Microsoft has promised to give more details about
Minecraft and HoloLens at the Minecon 2015 event on 4th of July.