Microsoft discontinues its mixed reality feature for Windows

Microsoft has discontinued its "mixed reality" feature for Windows. The Mixed Reality Portal app and Windows Mixed Reality for Steam VR app are also being shut down. The company launched the feature in a Windows 10 update back in 2017. The mixed reality portal app allowed users to access the technology on their personal computers with the use of compatible VR headsets.  

Microsoft uses mixed reality to describe software that blends both augmented and virtual reality. 

Augmented reality overlays text, sounds, graphics and video on real-world images that users see in front of them, while virtual reality immerses the users in an artificial world by creating computer-generated experiences. 

"Windows mixed reality is deprecated and will be removed in a future release of Windows," Microsoft said. 

Windows Mixed Reality acted as a portal to games, apps and other experiences inside the VR space. Apart from the Microsoft HoloLens, other companies, including Acer, Dell, Lenovo, Asus, HP, and Samsung, made mixed reality headsets compatible with Microsoft’s platform. 

It was reported last year that the company scrapped plans for HoloLens 3, in a move that could spell the end of the augmented reality headset line in that form.