Last year, Microsoft paid a whopping $2.5 billion for Mojang, the game maker behind the popular Minecraft game. At that time, it may have seemed a little strange to many about why the company would spend billions just for a lego game, but it all made sense when Microsoft showcased HoloLens back in January. Back in January, the company also demoed HoloBuilder, a Minecraft-like game which give users the ability to build virtual worlds — how awesome is that.
During a recent interview with the New York Times, Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella said it was a big reason behind the purchase of Minecraft.
“Let’s have a game that, in fact, will fundamentally help us change new categories,” Mr. Nadella said. “HoloLens was very much in the works then, and we knew it.”
Microsoft is yet to reveal pricing details of the headset, but one of the executives said “HoloLens would cost significantly more than a game console, which runs more than $400” — at least its less than the over-hyped Apple Watch.
With the HoloLens, Microsoft entered a totally new market, but the virtual reality industry is getting competitive slowly as we have a few companies with their own VR headsets, such as Samsung and Oculus, etc.
