Microsoft’s Ignite conference is just around the corner, and the company’s Mixed Reality figurehead, Alex Kipman, will be speaking at the event.
Ignite 2021 takes place from March 2nd – 4th, with a keynote speech opening up the first day. It’s the second year that the show has gone online in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. A list of speakers confirms that Kipman will speak alongside the likes of CEO Satya Nadella. Exactly what Kipman will be speaking on hasn’t been revealed.
We’ll definitely be interested to see what updates Microsoft has on the Mixed Reality side. The HoloLens 2 AR headset is now two years old and remains one of the only high-end devices of its kind on the market. A focus on enterprise gave it a head start over its rival, the Magic Leap One, and it’s still readily available. Earlier this month the company even launched a new Industrial Edition of the device.
2020 also saw Microsoft return to what we’d thought was its forgotten VR ‘Mixed Reality’ platform on Windows 10. HP once again adopted the platform for its second PC VR headset, the HP Reverb G2 (review here), which was also made in collaboration with Valve. It would certainly be interesting to see if Microsoft has plans for the future of that platform again.
With all that said, don’t forget that Ignite is Microsoft’s chance to talk about updates to Windows and other services; don’t expect many gaming and entertainment-focused announcements. We wouldn’t hold our breath for an Xbox VR headset to be announced at the show, for example.
