Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey says Magic Leap’s headset is terrible

Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey says Magic Leap’s headset is terrible

6 years ago
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https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/27/17786816/magic-leap-headset-palmer-luckey-oculus-tragedy-takedown

Mixed reality company Magic Leap just released its not-quite-a-development-kit headset, called the Magic Leap One. Responses have been mixed. It’s an ambitious and functional product, but one that’s made significant compromises without delivering a uniquely powerful experience. But Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey has delivered one of the harshest assessments so far, calling it “a tragedy in the classical sense” and prompting Magic Leap’s CEO to respond with an extended Avatar: The Last Airbender analogy.

Oculus Rift inventor Luckey bought a Magic Leap One, and in a blog post, he argues that bad design decisions make it barely a viable product. He calls the headset interface “basically an Android Wear watch menu that floats in front of you,” and while software can be fixed, he argues that Magic Leap’s magnetic controller tracking is hopelessly compromised. “It is less of a functional developer kit and more of a flashy hype vehicle that almost nobody can actually use in a meaningful way,” Luckey writes.