Mixed reality is a very powerful and interesting technology that will be implemented in both Meta Quest 3 from Meta (Mark Zuckerberg’s company that owns Instagram and Facebook) and Apple’s Apple Vision Pro. Roughly speaking, mixed reality is a cross between virtual and augmented reality, as it manages to combine two worlds – physical and virtual – into one to get more benefits from some applications designed for the consumption of audiovisual works and video games.
Before going into the details of what mixed reality is, it is necessary to briefly review the concepts of virtual reality and augmented reality. Virtual reality is one that allows the user plunge headlong into the digital world, which distances it as far as possible from the real world, which means that this type of technology prevents the user from seeing and hearing the physical environment around them as much as possible. This technology provides a huge level of immersion – increasing as you delve deeper – both visual – we can freely move our head to see the virtual environment in detail – and sonic, and can be found, for example, in the Sony PlayStation VR 2.
On the other hand, augmented reality does not seek to fully immerse us in a virtual world created entirely by a computer, but rather it benefits from a physical environment to implement digital objects. In other words, in augmented reality, we normally perceive the elements that surround us through our senses, but various elements are added to the environment that are not actually there. A very vivid example can be found in Pokemon GO and Art Monster hunter nowtwo augmented reality games developed by Niantic Labs.
A revolution on the level of smartphones?
Some major companies in the computing, entertainment and technology industries, such as Microsoft, do not hesitate to say that Mixed reality could be a revolution on par with personal computers and smart phones. It is not for nothing that we are talking about a technology that goes far beyond the limited experience we can live in front of a screen, allowing us to interact with various virtual elements, using as a basis the physical environment of real life.
Therefore, mixed reality can be defined as a mixture or collision between the real world that surrounds us and a completely digital world that evoking increasingly intuitive and natural interactions between people, the environment and equipment. For mixed reality to take effect, it is essential that technologies are developed that are able to understand the real environment that surrounds them to implement digital elements, in addition to others that can track the movement of our hands, eyes and voice almost to the millimeter.
As you can imagine, there have been many advances in sensors over the years that They allow us to accurately record the position of human bodies in the physical world and detect the distances and positions at which various objects and surfaces are located.. According to Microsoft’s own article, when a person moves in a physical environment, their movements are “reflected in digital reality”; Naturally, mixed reality also takes physical boundaries into account as they affect your experience.
Application of Mixed Reality in Video Games
As we have said, mixed reality has many applications in various fields, both in terms of education, work and entertainment. In the case of video games, mixed reality can open up a wide range of possibilities, allowing players to interact with digital elements integrated into the real world. Despite the fact that Meta Quest 3 will launch with a catalog of over 500 titles and apps already available in Meta Quest and Meta Quest 2In addition to the fact that this content offering will be expanded in December with the addition of Xbox Game Pass, it remains to be seen to what extent video game companies will bet on mixed reality.
