Hololens price estimate

[Daniel Ratcliffe]

Hold up, 6 figures? You think $100,000 will be the price?!

Yes I do. Given everything in it, plus the fact there's no competition currently, and it'll be seen as an elite thing to have, I reckon we're looking at ?100k yes. I'll probably be proved wrong but it's possible.

 

[grahamf]

Yes I do. Given everything in it, plus the fact there's no competition currently, and it'll be seen as an elite thing to have, I reckon we're looking at ?100k yes. I'll probably be proved wrong but it's possible.

It's a tool for the masses, not a toy for the rich. Pricing it like that will just make it a failure that nobody wants.

Also: Spending the entire GDP of the USA will not put IBM's Watson into your watch. We're still restrained by the limits of physics and the current state of technology, and no amount of money will change that.

 

[Witness]

I think there will be at least 3 version of these- 1. consumer/gaming 2. Enterprise 3. Government

1. consumer - $300-500
2. Enterprise - $ 500-above
3. Government - $1000 above

The Government version will be exactly as the Enterprise version... only that it has Government pricing on the invoice.

 

[Spencer Carriveau]

Yes I do. Given everything in it, plus the fact there's no competition currently, and it'll be seen as an elite thing to have, I reckon we're looking at ?100k yes. I'll probably be proved wrong but it's possible.

Microsoft has publicly gone on record saying it would be within "consumer price range". Meaning it will likely be the price of a Surface Pro 3 or less.

The Government version will be exactly as the Enterprise version... only that it has Government pricing on the invoice.

Microsoft has given no indication of different hardware between consumers and enterprise. And there is no reason for separate products to exist(like there are not specific consumer/enterprise versions of the surface pro 3, there are just different specification options).

 

[Daniel Ratcliffe]

Microsoft has publicly gone on record saying it would be within "consumer price range". Meaning it will likely be the price of a Surface Pro 3 or less.

Thank goodness I don't have a partner to convince. HoloLens get on my eyes. How well will they work with Astro A40s?

 

[Great deal]

Price will be competitive....MS wrote off 1 BILLION worth of Surface stock....they can easily take the hit and with the amount of interest they wont lose too much money on version 1.0

If priced over $1000 its a non starter.
If priced $500 its doable for many.
Less than $500 its an absolute bargain.

The prototype probably cost them millions, the manufacturing is not too hard for them to do considering its plastic and glass (doubt theres anything super intricate) and the most important aspect...the software and its not as if MS is outsourcing it to anyone else...to the chap who thinks it may be 6 figures...can I have what you've been smoking plz!

Like the original Surface pro and the Band 1.0 MS are testing the water/demand and will refine the technology and cost etc accordingly in version 2.0 which is the one im waiting for.

 

[grahamf]

Price will be competitive....MS wrote off 1 BILLION worth of Surface stock....they can easily take the hit and with the amount of interest they wont lose too much money on version 1.0

If priced over $1000 its a non starter.
If priced $500 its doable for many.
Less than $500 its an absolute bargain.

The prototype probably cost them millions, the manufacturing is not too hard for them to do considering its plastic and glass (doubt theres anything super intricate) and the most important aspect...the software and its not as if MS is outsourcing it to anyone else...to the chap who thinks it may be 6 figures...can I have what you've been smoking plz!

Like the original Surface pro and the Band 1.0 MS are testing the water/demand and will refine the technology and cost etc accordingly in version 2.0 which is the one im waiting for.

It's marketed towards Business folks, same with the Surface Hub which goes up to $10,000. Remember the Google Glass costs $2000 and no way does it have tech that competes with the Hololens. Plastic is cheap, but not the stuff that goes inside it. The Hololens has the capabilities of a decently powerful laptop, which you cannot get for even $600.

 

[DanielJoseph7]

It's marketed towards Business folks, same with the Surface Hub which goes up to $10,000. Remember the Google Glass costs $2000 and no way does it have tech that competes with the Hololens. Plastic is cheap, but not the stuff that goes inside it. The Hololens has the capabilities of a decently powerful laptop, which you cannot get for even $600.

Well after E3, which I believe they said it would be in consumer price range but I may be wrong, I'm definitely set at somewhere between $900-$1200.

 

[jimcomvideos]

$995.00 is my guess. Do I win a prize is I get it right? Umm? If it's way more expensive, a lot of people are going to be turned off.

 

[jimcomvideos]

This thread is about potential cost, but more importantly, we need to think about potential implications. If this thing can put us on Mars, it can put us anywhere imaginable. How about the French Riviera, the Taj Mahal, the Pyramids of Egypt. Ok, I'll go $600. and no more.

 

[ArmaTav]

What Microsoft has to think about now is; How much are people wiling/able to spend on something they don't need right now?

Also important is Microsoft's aim with this product. Is this something aimed at elites only? Or is this a product for the masses?

Looking at what the world's economy is atm It's ridiculous to think this will cost something above 750 USD. Baffling to see people thinking about 1.000 to 1.500USD here :shocked: .... If they price it THIS high It'll sell in the North American market for a while and remain an oddity elsewhere.

Sometimes profit can be made by lowering prices, aiming at a broader consumer base and increasing units sold. Sometimes profit can be made by going as far as giving stuff away (W10 anyone??).

Having said that, I hope Hololens will lower (from whatever price MS starts selling it), to something between 350 and 500USD... 399 USD would be a nice price tag that would make hololens possible to millions worldwide.

To those labeling this as 'wishful thinking' I say: If something is too expensive and I don't need it (and I don't NEED Hololens) I wont buy it.

If MS goes for the throat, pricing it betwen 1K and 1.5K USD, it'll be a fiasco greater then Google Glass.

My 2 cents anyway.

 

[DanielJoseph7]

What Microsoft has to think about now is; How much are people wiling/able to spend on something they don't need right now?

Also important is Microsoft's aim with this product. Is this something aimed at elites only? Or is this a product for the masses?

Looking at what the world's economy is atm It's ridiculous to think this will cost something above 750 USD. Baffling to see people thinking about 1.000 to 1.500USD here :shocked: .... If they price it THIS high It'll sell in the North American market for a while and remain an oddity elsewhere.

Sometimes profit can be made by lowering prices, aiming at a broader consumer base and increasing units sold. Sometimes profit can be made by going as far as giving stuff away (W10 anyone??).

Having said that, I hope Hololens will lower (from whatever price MS starts selling it), to something between 350 and 500USD... 399 USD would be a nice price tag that would make hololens possible to millions worldwide.

To those labeling this as 'wishful thinking' I say: If something is too expensive and I don't need it (and I don't NEED Hololens) I wont buy it.

If MS goes for the throat, pricing it betwen 1K and 1.5K USD, it'll be a fiasco greater then Google Glass.

My 2 cents anyway.

Well said and I could agree with this. I'd say a high 1000$ starting point to see how they sell at that price. Then maybe a price drop if numbers don't look good.

 

[grahamf]

The Developer Kit costs $3,000 and I really doubt that Microsoft is trying to rip off the developers that Hololens desperately needs.

I'm saying $1,500+ for a consumer unit.

 

[idokamaroq]

Looking at what the world's economy is atm It's ridiculous to think this will cost something above 750 USD. Baffling to see people thinking about 1.000 to 1.500USD here :shocked: .... If they price it THIS high It'll sell in the North American market for a while and remain an oddity elsewhere.

Sometimes profit can be made by lowering prices, aiming at a broader consumer base and increasing units sold. Sometimes profit can be made by going as far as giving stuff away (W10 anyone??).

Having said that, I hope Hololens will lower (from whatever price MS starts selling it), to something between 350 and 500USD... 399 USD would be a nice price tag that would make hololens possible to millions worldwide.

To those labeling this as 'wishful thinking' I say: If something is too expensive and I don't need it (and I don't NEED Hololens) I wont buy it.

If MS goes for the throat, pricing it betwen 1K and 1.5K USD, it'll be a fiasco greater then Google Glass.

I will label that as wishful thinking (or maybe even a little delusional), and you won't be buying it if you will only pay that much. Let's start with a computer, since there is one crammed in that little headset. Let's go with the base Surface Pro 4, just for kicks. There's $900 already, if I'm not mistaken. Waaayyy above your estimate. Plus, who knows how much whatever that projection technology costs. I baffles me how you think $1-1.5k is baffling. That's already lower than some ultrabooks.

Also, on giving stuff away to make a profit, that doesn't ever really work on hardware. The cost of an OS to a company: software development time. The cost of a piece of hardware to a company: materials, manufacturing, hardware design and development time, and software development time again.

.... You know what, MS probably could have made a $400 hololens if they wanted. And it would have sucked. It would be slow and laggy (huuuuge con when you're projecting dynamic holograms into your eyes... imagine if you turned your head and whatever screen you're reading this reply on took a second to spaz away to the side of your vision), heavy, bulky, ugly, have no useful amount of battery life or storage, etc. Then they'd really have a problem with no one buying it and it would die even faster.


Wasn't Google Glass like $2k-ish for the dev edition?

 

[grahamf]

Let's take a look at the closest alternative, a Samsung Gear VR Unit with a Note 4 ($200 + $700)
Looking into the future: Samsung Gear VR review

This, while perfectly usable for something, is quite limited compared to what Hololens is going to put out. Hololens will by far have a more powerful system with a more capable OS, and that's still not counting the display tech that has never been used before. The display technology is practically science fiction compared to anything we've seen or used before, and not even the very rich (or the millitary) have had this technology beforehand. Strapping a LCD to your head with special lenses? pfft easy. Beaming light DIRECTLY INTO YOUR eye and having it reproduce an image correctly and with the correct focal distance (far away thing look blurry when looking closely and vice versa)? That has never been even DEMOED before. There has been no product available that used this technology, and i don't believe there has been any laboratory demos. This is the closest thing we have ever gotten to the holy grail of virtual reality, and it seems that Microsoft developed the technology all by itself.

And it's not just the physical unit that's not simple, but also for the processing needed to render the images correctly. This technology was unfeasible only a year or two ago, thanks to the efficiency and processing requirements needed to pull this off in a portable unit. Hell, the first Hololens demo units plugged into the wall and required a whole PC to be strapped to your chest.


And yet people expected it to be available for only $600 at launch.

 

[beman39]

this is pure speculation and I have scoured the internet as I'm very very interested in the hololens and I have heard speculation that the hololens will start selling at $3000 which a few places has stated that price range, which makes sense to me since 1) how much it costs to buy a surface book or SP4 nowadays? and 2) the tech that went into this gadget and they had to invent their own 3d GPU rendering processor and 3) MS never ever sells anything cheap! (just look at how much the Lumia 950XL costs! LOL... so yeeeeeaaaa you better start saving now!

 

[DavidinCT]

This will be interesting..... On a business level, sure I can see a device like this selling (with good software), for $25K or more. When it comes down to it, it's all about supply and demand. Business devices like this are not really around right now.

Now, for consumers, If it's more than $300, I wont get one... My guess with the Dev kit going for $3K (this price point would rule out most home users who just wanted to play with it). In the real world, for the first year, around $1500-2000. This price point will only sell to businesses. Consumers on a $2K "toy" (come on who is going to use this more than a toy or gaming at home ?), it wont sell very well at all.

Microsoft's best bet is to release it under $500, Give the dev software free with a plug in to current dev software so people can adapt to it easy.

Even if it was $99, if it didn't have any software and don't work on the xbox /xbox one, it would be worthless device...Might be fun for a few weeks to play with the demo stuff but once the thrill of owning and using it is over...it will look pretty on a shelf someplace and never touched again.

So when it comes down to it, it's about software support, then price.... It needs PLENTY of software for it before their is any real value to it. To be a HOT seller and sell thousands or even millions, that price/software needs to be JUST right.

 

[Migi2015]

At least $1000.

 

[Migi2015]

This will be interesting..... On a business level, sure I can see a device like this selling (with good software), for $25K or more. When it comes down to it, it's all about supply and demand. Business devices like this are not really around right now.

Now, for consumers, If it's more than $300, I wont get one... My guess with the Dev kit going for $3K (this price point would rule out most home users who just wanted to play with it). In the real world, for the first year, around $1500-2000. This price point will only sell to businesses. Consumers on a $2K "toy" (come on who is going to use this more than a toy or gaming at home ?), it wont sell very well at all.

Microsoft's best bet is to release it under $500, Give the dev software free with a plug in to current dev software so people can adapt to it easy.

Even if it was $99, if it didn't have any software and don't work on the xbox /xbox one, it would be worthless device...Might be fun for a few weeks to play with the demo stuff but once the thrill of owning and using it is over...it will look pretty on a shelf someplace and never touched again.

So when it comes down to it, it's about software support, then price.... It needs PLENTY of software for it before their is any real value to it. To be a HOT seller and sell thousands or even millions, that price/software needs to be JUST right.

Yet iPhones have an ASP of $650 and they sell 45-50 million per quarter.

 

[DavidinCT]

Yet iPhones have an ASP of $650 and they sell 45-50 million per quarter.

That statement is like comparing Apples with grapes (not even oranges, as it's so far off not even in the same bal park)

And what percent of those people actually PAY $650 in cash to buy the phone ? 5-10% ? MAYBE ? Crap, you can get a iPhone 6 for like $0.01 from places like Amazon now with a 2 year contract (or a $20 for 24 months).

A phone, if it be an iOS, Windows Phone, or Android is a communication device that most people find as an important piece of their life. You cant compare a Hololens to a mobile phone. Comparing those 2 makes no sense at all.

A phone these days is more of a need, something that does 3D images is a WANT NOT A NEED.

I stand by what I said, $300-500, it's with consumers in mind, target possible Xbox one use, or PC for gaming (with AAA game support). $1000+ targeting businesses, No main stream Xbox one support, No PC gaming, Only devs who would use this for business application (lack of fun software).

Pricing will make this a Must have, or be one of those things you play with a few demos and it sits on your shelf for a year after playing with it for about 2 weeks or so...with out software and possible games, that is all it's good for on a consumer level.