There are no wires, no loose-hanging components or anything that normally screams 'prototype.' However, I'm unable to simply grab the HoloLens and strap it on. The design is sleek and lightweight, with arched plastic straps that wrap comfortably around your head. HoloLens looks like a product that's ready to be sold on store shelves.

A rep demos HoloLens' gesture control at Microsoft's Build Developer Conference 2015. The walls are painted to look like bookshelves, with a few hanging pictures and a clear space on one side where I'll be projecting the virtual screen. A comfy sofa is set up at one end, with a perfectly square coffee table in the center. Once the distance between my pupils has been calculated, I'm guided into a second room that looks like a library. Now, here at Minecon, I've been given the chance to try the same demo for myself. The player was able to project the game onto a wall and later place the entire world on a coffee table. One of its most impressive showings to date was at E3 in Los Angeles this year, where Microsoft demoed an AR version of Minecraft. With the HoloLens headset, you can visualize and manipulate digital images overlaid on the physical world. While Oculus, Sony and Valve are busy working on virtual reality (VR), Microsoft is focusing on something else entirely: augmented reality (AR). But today, instead of queuing for pictures with creepers and famous YouTubers, I'm waiting to play Minecraft on HoloLens. Once an indie darling, the imaginative sandbox title is now a global phenomenon played by millions of children and adults around the world. It's not even 9AM, but already the first Minecraft fans are spilling through for the second day of Minecon - a fan convention that celebrates the blocky building game invented by Markus 'Notch' Persson.

I'm sitting in a small meeting room deep inside London's Excel Exhibition Centre, waiting for the distance between my eyes to be measured.

'Oh, you've moved again,' my guide mutters with a hint of disappointment. My gaze is locked on the piercing white light inside, but I can feel my sleep-deprived eyes beginning to tire. I'm staring through an unusual pair of binoculars - the kind that's normally used to test your eyesight in an optometrist's office. 'Try to look straight,' a Microsoft employee tells me in a bright, cheery tone.

Minecraft field of view