Oculus founder calls Apple headset 'excellent', Quest 3 'great as well'
In a Twitter interview, Palmer Luckey talks about the Apple Headset, Meta Quest 3 and the state of the VR industry.
The Oculus and Anduril founder chatted with Peter Diamandis, chairman and CEO of the non-profit XPRIZE Foundation, on Twitter on 4 May.
Diamandis asked Luckey if he was happy with the state of virtual reality and what his expectations were for Apple's headset. In the conversation, Luckey claims to have seen an earlier version of the device.
"The Apple headset is very, very good. I have not seen the final headset, but I have seen an earlier version of the headset and it is excellent. It is gonna be a huge deal. It is gonna be expensive, but I think that they’re following a pretty smart strategy, which is to make VR into something everybody wants before it’s something that everybody can afford, which was kind of our position in the early days when we started Oculus."
On May 14, Luckey reiterated in a tweet that the Apple device is "so good", without providing further context.
The Apple headset is so good.
— Palmer Luckey (@PalmerLuckey) May 14, 2023
Apple's mixed reality headset will reportedly be unveiled at WWDC 2023 in early June. For more information on the headset, take a look at our dedicated Apple headset article.
Quest 3 will be a "great headset as well"
Luckey next touched on Meta Quest 3, comparing the device to the Apple headset:
"Meta is also coming out with a new headset this year. The Oculus Quest 3 is probably what they’re gonna call it, but it is a lot more compact. It’s a lot more powerful. It’s gonna be a really great headset as well, but it’s gonna be a much more affordable headset. It’s not gonna be on the extreme end of kind of showing what can be done in theory, but it’s gonna be a really good product."
It's not clear from Luckey's comments whether he's seen or tried Meta Quest 3 himself. He may have seen a developer kit. The same could be true of the Apple headset. There's no way of knowing for sure.
Luckey still believes in VR
Here's what Luckey has to say about the state of the VR industry:
"As far as if I’m happy – look, yeah. I think that if I were still running things, things would be going faster and they’d be doing better. But everyone thinks that. Everyone thinks that if they were in charge, then, you know, whether it’s politics or agriculture or, tech, everyone imagines that they’d be the number one boss. But I’m not. Mark Zuckerberg is.
So given all of the challenges, he’s still investing heavily. He’s putting a lot of money into this. Apple’s putting a lot of money into this. I’m still confident that VR is kind of inevitably the final computing platform, barring some kind of telepathic Borg hive mine."
You can listen in on the full conversation on Twitter.
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