Wanna play with virtual reality? Microsoft promises HoloLens to developers within a year

Satya Nadella promises HoloLens kits to developers within a year - but consumers will have to wait until 2020 before playing Call of Duty VR

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has promised to release the company's HoloLens augmented reality headset and associated tools to developers "within a year" - but it may take another five years before members of the public will be able to play Call of Duty or Elite:Dangerous using HoloLens.

In an interview with the BBC, Nadella described HoloLens as a "five-year journey", with developers able to purchase the devices and tools first, before it is released to businesses and then, last of all, to the general public.

"We will have developer versions of it first, and then it will be more commercial use cases and then it will evolve. This is a five year journey," Nadella told the BBC.

He continued: "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 time frame which means that it is within the next year."

The company has offered $500,000 in research grants to encourage researchers to put together and develop use-cases for the HoloLens, although the grants are only available for US-based individuals and organisations.

Microsoft has demonstrated some applications of the HoloLens, such as the ability to not just design products, buildings and other items in 3D, but to explore them in three dimensions, too. CAD software maker Autodesk, for example, announced plans in April to embed its Spark 3D printing platform in Windows 10, released last week, and to make its 3D modelling software interoperable with HoloLens.

"In the future, designers and engineers could create 3D models of their ideas with Autodesk software, like Fusion 360, view the models with HoloLens, and prep them for 3D printing on Spark-compatible printers," claimed the company.

Software architect and AutoCAD user Kean Walmsley wrote in a blog post: "I believe the immersive experience of virtual reality is going to be really important for the entertainment industry and some limited use-cases for design professionals, such as walk- and fly-throughs of a purely virtual space (perhaps in the context of digital cities).

"It'll also be useful for other kinds of design review that aren't anchored to the real world. Of course, it could also be the pre-cursor to us all living in shoe boxes, only interacting inside virtualities, but I'm not ready to go there just yet."

The HoloLens was unveiled in January this year, and made available for a select number of people at the company's Build 2015 conference in May - Computing's hands-on review of the HoloLens can be read here.

While Microsoft is pushing HoloLens as a serious application for business, it will almost inevitably only go mainstream when it becomes a consumer device - with, perhaps, HoloLens Xbox enabling Call of Duty or Elite:Dangerous to played in full 3D.