Microsoft laid off the entire AltSpaceVR and MRTK development team, HoloLens follow-up development may be affected

CTOnews.com, January 22, Microsoft announced on January 19 that it would cut 10, 000 jobs in the third quarter of fiscal 2023. The latest news indicates that Microsoft has fired the entire development team of AltSpaceVR and Mixed Reality Tool Kit (MRTK).

CTOnews.com small class: AltSpaceVR was acquired by Microsoft in 2017. AltspaceVR, formerly known as Qualia3D, was founded in 2013 to help developers transform ordinary web applications into 3D forms suitable for virtual reality scenes.

In order to find a market entry point, the company has transformed several times, even changed its name, and finally used VR social and gaming as a breakthrough to build a social platform that allows users of Oculus Rift, Gear VR and Google Cardboard to chat, have meetings, exercise, play cards, play games, and so on in virtual reality scenarios.

AltSpaceVR is Microsoft's strategic acquisition of meta-universe and integrates it into Microsoft Mesh services. But for now, Microsoft is not particularly concerned about the promotion of meta-universe, so this part has become the focus of this layoff.

In addition to AltSpaceVR, Microsoft also cut off the entire MRTK development team. MRTK is built for Unity VR integration and can be used with Meta's header display, but the development focus is on HoloLens.

HoloLens has shrunk since the departure of its chief architect, Alex Kipman (Alex Kipman). Microsoft has been seeking to sign a HoloLens contract with the US military, but Congress recently curtailed the contract because of problems.