Have you downloaded Windows 10 and are keen to get your hands on a Hololens headset? Don't whip out the credit card just yet, as it seems you could be in for a very long wait.
Although Microsoft made a huge song and dance about Hololens at its Windows 10 unveiling earlier this year, there's little chance of consumers strapping the headset on anytime soon. In an interview with the BBC's Click programme, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella admitted the headset is up to a year away from even reaching developers.
"We will have developer versions of it first, and then it will be more commercial use cases, and then it will evolve," said Nadella. "This is a five-year journey. We are looking forward to getting a v1 out, which is more around developers and enterprises, and you know it’s in the Windows 10 timeframe which means that it is within the next year."
It's not clear if Nadella's "five-year journey" comment means Hololens won't launch as a consumer product until 2020, but the interview certainly indicates that a full launch is a distant speck on the horizon.
That paves the way for alternative products to capture the virtual reality market. The final version of the Oculus Rift headset has been confirmed and is set to launch in early 2016. Sony's Project Morpheus headset for the PlayStation 4 is also set to launch within that timeframe, and others are in the pipeline.
Although Microsoft's Hololens is arguably more ambitious than any of the headsets that are due to arrive on the market soon, blending holographic images into the "real world" around us, rivals will likely have an opportunity to get second-generation headsets into the market by the time Microsoft's first effort arrives.
