When we first used Microsoft's HoloLens augmented reality (AR) headset, we felt it was magical, but our enthusiasm was tempered somewhat when we used the hardware a second time. In the move from rough development unit to integrated pre-production hardware, the field of view had shrunk, making the holographic experience much less immersive. The hardware still worked well, but it no longer had the same power to transport us to new worlds.

The gap between what HoloLens promised and what it delivered was worrisome, and Microsoft's demos of games like Minecraft and Halo just compounded this problem. We don't want that. We don't want a poisoned well. And we think it's up to Microsoft to cut that possibility off at the pass—by repositioning its audience and by doing some more sensible evangelizing.

Avoiding the poisoned well

The uptake of and interest in virtual reality was arguably set back for years by the frankly horrible experiences of virtual reality in the early 1990s. Early versions simply didn't work well, and they soured many on the entire concept. It's only within the last few years that these past experiences have been put behind us, and interest in VR systems has been reignited, with the now Facebook-owned Oculus leading the way.

A bad HoloLens-type device that promises the world but fails to deliver could similarly hinder uptake of AR. Augmented reality introduces additional challenges not found in VR; AR systems have to track their environment and ensure that computer-generated objects integrate consistently with that environment. If virtual objects become detached from the physical surfaces they're supposed to be attached to, the illusion breaks and the experience suffers. More generally, if technology limitations cause a disconnect between the promise—the seamless blending of the real and the virtual, extending reality with unreality—and the reality, both HoloLens and anything else purporting to offer a comparable experience, could be tarnished.

We have, after all, seen this kind of thing before, with the technology that is in many ways HoloLens' direct predecessor: Kinect. The promise of Kinect was huge: "You are the controller." It sold like gangbusters amid expectations of a variety of rich gaming interactions, and then it failed to deliver on its promises. It didn't quite work well enough for everything that people hoped it would do, and developers struggled to use Kinect to meaningfully enhance their games. Microsoft doubled down on Kinect by including the (technically superior) Kinect 2 with the Xbox One, and this move was met with indifference at best and outright disdain at worst. Kinect didn't really work well for gamers, so why was Microsoft making its gaming device more expensive with this unwanted non-gaming peripheral?

The company eventually backed down and now sells Kinect-less Xbox Ones, but the harm has been significant, both to Kinect specifically and to motion sensing more broadly. This history has overshadowed the Kinect applications that really have been successful in fields such as medicine and science.

The limited field of view arguably threatens to have this same kind of detrimental impact for HoloLens.

Demonstration difficulties

Part of the problem is due to the way that Microsoft has demonstrated HoloLens on stage. The way Microsoft presented HoloLens, while not exactly misleading, nonetheless failed to properly capture the subjective experience of using the hardware. The problem with any technology like HoloLens is that the experience doesn't translate to third parties. Only the person viewing through the headset can see the blend of real-world and computer graphics. The computer-generated portion only works when seen from the user's perspective, which makes showing HoloLens on stage challenging.

Microsoft tackled this challenge by combining regular video cameras with Kinect-style sensors (much as HoloLens does). The Kinect sensors provide the same kind of positional input and information that the HoloLens headset has, and the computer-generated portions can be overlaid onto the camera output to provide a good equivalent to the HoloLens experience. In its on-stage demonstrations, Microsoft's Kinect cameras shared the same 3D scenery as the HoloLens user, enabling us to "see" what the HoloLens user could see, albeit from a different position and angle.

This solution was clever and effective, but it had a problem; it didn't replicate the HoloLens' field of view. It showed the full 3D scene. HoloLens, as we discovered in our later uses of it, generally doesn't show the full scene, unless the scene is very small or you're standing far back from it. In many ways, this is understandable. When using a HoloLens, you can compensate somewhat for the limited field of view by moving your head around. When you have a Kinect-camera rig being held by a cameraman, that isn't really possible. It was always a third-person view of an intrinsically first-person experience, and that's never going to show the full picture.

Recent videos have made the limitations clearer by mimicking something closer to the first-person HoloLens experience. And it's still pretty cool. But it's not quite what we felt it should be.

It all felt like Microsoft was on the cusp of delivering something that was awesome but would inevitably lead to disappointment. Nowhere was this difference greater than in one of Microsoft's most accessible HoloLens demos: HoloLens Minecraft. This demo was hugely compelling, something that would excite any of the millions of Minecraft players, but it also made the field-of-view limitations feel their most acute. Minecraft is filled with huge structures, cavernous caves, and expansive vistas, and HoloLens makes you look at all of them through a letter box.

This demo was worrisome because HoloLens Minecraft is a mass-market application, promoted to an audience that probably doesn't care about why the technical limitations exist, isn't necessarily buying because of some carefully reasoned cost/benefit analysis, and simply wants the thing to be fun rather than incrementally more productive. If this audience is mis-sold on version one, it's sure not going to buy version two, even if version two fixes the problems of version one. As former-President George W. Bush so eloquently put it, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice... you can't get fooled again."

Finding the right audience

But the situation became a lot less worrisome after Mary Jo Foley interviewed Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. While the desirability of HoloLens as a gaming peripheral is unavoidable, version one of the hardware won't be aimed at the Minecraft audience. It will be aimed at business and enterprise users in applications where its potent visualization capabilities are perhaps more important than its ability to deliver immersive virtual worlds. Its success will be measured in terms of greater productivity and enabling new scenarios, not in its ability to deliver visceral new thrills.

For example, one of the situations that Microsoft has demonstrated is the use of HoloLens in a partially finished building, enabling builders, architects, and clients to discuss changes while literally standing in the partially finished building. Even with field-of-view limitations, this application isn't something that can be readily performed any other way; 3D renders lack the immediacy that a site visit provides, and physical models lack the easy malleability that virtual worlds offer. HoloLens doesn't have to be the perfect AR implementation to offer practical value over these alternatives. No, it's not going to offer a perfectly immersive 3D world. But it is going to offer substantially richer interaction than a mere computer screen could ever hope to.

Microsoft's own marketing efforts need to reflect this positioning, of course. If Microsoft doesn't want the HoloLens to be perceived as a gaming device with the sky-high expectations that come with such a device—if the company wants it to be seen as something a little more business-oriented and productive—then it would do well to stop showing off Minecraft demos, even if they are good fun.

This focus can be reinforced further by pricing the device at, say, $1,500 rather than $500. A $500 gaming peripheral is expected to deliver the moon on a stick; $500 is a lot of money to spend on a gaming device. You can buy an entire console for less than that, so it sets expectations extremely high: it should offer nothing short of a Scott Pilgrim vs the World style experience. A $1,500 business productivity device is, for that very different market, relatively inexpensive. While even this audience will expect HoloLens' visuals to impress—which they will—the main thing that HoloLens will be expected to do is save time, improve collaboration, and make money. The demands will be much more in line with what it can actually achieve.

While it will surely be a disappointment to Minecraft fans hoping to take a tour of their blocky worlds, it's good for HoloLens and augmented reality in general. It means that rather than being judged by the high standards of our imagination, this exciting product will be a little more grounded. This will give Microsoft—and others—the space to improve and refine the experience. One day, AR will surely offer the kind of encompassing 3D worlds that many are hoping for. But for now, the threat of a bait and switch—a huge gulf between what's sold and what's actually possible—needs to be averted. HoloLens version one will still be magical and exciting. Giving it a business focus means that it will avoid being crushed under the weight of expectations that are, for the time being, unreachable.