Mixed reality is heading to the Xbox One and Project Scorpio in 2018, says Microsoft

Kareem Anderson

Microsoft isn’t waiting until this year’s E3 to start teasing features of its upcoming gaming console offer codename Project Scorpio. Today, at the Game Developer’s Conference held in San Francisco, Microsoft let it slip that its efforts in bringing mixed reality to Windows 10 would also benefit Xbox and potential Project Scorpio gamers alike.

However, the Xbox team left a lot of vague wiggle room as to exactly how its ‘mixed reality’ experience would manifest itself. Some publication in attendance have speculated:

“There’s a chance we’ll see a bit of both. VR experiences have already proven themselves for gaming via Rift, Vive, and Playstation VR, but the augmented side has its merits too, as seen by the likes of Pokemon Go). It would be pretty awesome to see a future HoloLens provide a HUD-like interface while gaming, for instance, or help you visualize enemies coming into a scene from outside of your TV frame.”

Microsoft has already hinted that it will continue its mixed reality talk during its own developer conference, Build 2017, later this May and gamers should expect to hear even more about virtual and augmented reality during E3 2017.

Over the past two years, Microsoft has continued to try and muddy the waters between the PC Master Race type of enthusiasts and the casual console-dependant gamers. Fortunately, for Microsoft, incorporating Mixed Reality experience to its wide range of products is a company-wide mandate rather than being a nice one-off differentiator on for its gaming efforts.