HoloLens + Minecraft @ Microsoft E3 Gaming Conference

9:30AM, Pacific Time, the Microsoft E3 Gaming Conference was held in Los Angeles. The theme is “Jump Ahead with XBOX One”. The most amazing part is, this time, they presented a “live” demo of playing Minecraft using Microsoft augmented-reality headset – HoloLens.

As my former comparison article says, the images renderred in HoloLens appeared distractingly transparent; in return, Minecraft is very suitable to be layed in HoloLens. The gaming experience is like playing Lego in your own room.

The user interaction of HoloLens is amazing in the live demo. It allows players to manipulate the 3D world atop a table, look inside buildings and walk around scenes.

Here is the video published by CNET:

Some audience are very positive:

Microsoft is where innovation is right now. – by Ruben Fernandes (Rauven)

while others are not:

I’ll believe it when I see it. I remember how amazing microsoft made the colossal turd that is the kinect look amazing before release. – by HipHopObsession

Indeed, from my perspective, Microsoft should show the live scene blended by HoloLens instead of another video camera with tracker:

The table is tracked by QR code in live and the scene might be rendered and animated by another program.

But still, the hand tracking seems superb. Let’s look forward to HoloLen’s first publication to the market.

Other big news include introducing Halo 5 Co-op Gameplay:

publishing Recore, a new game from Keiji Inafune (the legendary creator of games like Mega Man, Metroid 3, Lost Planet, and Dead Rising) and the makers of Metroid Prime. In it, you play one of the last surviving humans on Earth and team up with robot companions to travel through a hostile and mysterious world.