Disney Infinity more suited to HoloLens AR than Oculus VR, studio says

Disney is interested in bringing its multi-world toy/gaming franchise Infinity to the impressive, in-development Microsoft HoloLens platform.

Speaking to Engadget, Disney Interactive VP John Vignocchi said Augmented Reality experience may be better suited to the Disney Infinity series than the current advances in VR.

That could eventually mean characters from the Marvel, Pixar and Lucasfilm stables marauding around in real life landscapes, thanks to the theoretical power of HoloLens to project digital onto actual.

This would allow Disney to make the game a more social experience than it would be within the solitary nature of current VR experiences, the firm reasons.

Vignocchi said: “We’ve had multiple meetings and discussions with Oculus, multiple meetings and discussions with Sony about Morpheus, multiple meetings and discussions with Microsoft about HoloLens. We’re very interested in that space.

“There’s the socialisation problem right now with VR, but augmented reality is very exciting.”

Read more: Disney Infinity 3.0 preview

Although inroads are being made to make VR more inclusive as a multi-player medium, Disney Interactive’s John Blackburn has doubts.

He added: “The idea of kind of creating that family memory and playing it together is really core to the experience we’re trying to build. And so when you put a lot of these headsets on, it’s almost isolating in a way.

“You kind of look at Microsoft’s HoloLens stuff where you can kind of see through. And that one’s kind of interesting from that perspective because I can see everybody else around me.”

Given Microsoft recently admitted spending $2 billion on Minecraft for use within HoloLens, its easy to see why Disney is also getting excited about the potential for AR gaming.

Which other gaming franchises do you think could work better in AR rather than VR? Share your thoughts below.