I don't doubt that MS paid to partner up with OR. With Sony having there own brand, and HTC partnering with Valve. This makes sense to partner with a major brand to try and tie up some type of exclusivity on their platform. I don;t think MS AR headset was ever going to be a viable alternative in the gaming realm, at least not for awhile because of price, and it being used more for practical applications outside of gaming.

Sony knows how to hype their products, they have their movies and TV division to give it the advertisment it needs. MS teaming up with the largest social network is going to be pretty big too alot of people that don't care for gaming, will be seeing this one constantly advertised to them. I'm sure Valves will do fine, as people that use Steam know about it. They don't even seem to stress about their own Steamboxes being late, and some really overpriced. 

Im not interested in VR. Reading stories about writers having burnt in images in their vision when they close their eyes from extended play is enough to keep me away.

third person VR...thats just...weird