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Dented Reality: Magic Leap Sees Slow Sales, Steep Losses

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Re: Dented Reality: Magic Leap Sees Slow Sales, Steep Losses

#51

Post by IshKebab »

1MoreThing wrote: post #22
daenz wrote: post #12

The thing that got me about the Magic Leap is I couldn't find a reliable video of what it looked like through the lenses. Everything was clearly a CGI overlay or recreation. Reviewers claimed they were prohibited from showing video through the lenses.[0] I can understand not wanting their product misrepresented, but all the secrecy and censorship about it makes me believe it is bad, and I'm not going to spend money o…

The problem is that a video through the lenses isn't going to tell you anything about the experience of actually wearing one of these things.

It's going to tell you more than a CGI artist's impression nonsense.

People were able to film through the lenses for standard VR glasses. I can't find anyone that tried it for Hololens but given that they also cost several thousand dollars it's probably not that surprising. I have used the Hololens quite a bit and I can't see any reason why you couldn't film from the eye's point of view.

Re: Dented Reality: Magic Leap Sees Slow Sales, Steep Losses

#52

Post by danso »

zaroth wrote: post #4

I didn’t even know they had gotten beyond vaporware! Why would someone spend $2,300 on this equipment other than as a developer kit? I assume there is virtually no compelling content or services available to make a consumer interested in shelling out that amount of money, or even 1/10th that amount of money.

Same. The only times I've ever heard Magic Leap substantially discussed, including user experience, was on HN. I was under the impression it was still in something like a closed beta.

Re: Dented Reality: Magic Leap Sees Slow Sales, Steep Losses

#53

Post by ianai »

defterGoose wrote: post #46
donpdonp wrote: post #39

Magic Leap One has been for sale for 6 months. At $2.6B in total funding, thats $433,333 per unit for 6,000 units. The sticker price is $2300 per unit. By comparison the Nintendo VirtualBoy was for sale for one year at $180(in 1995/$300 in 2018) and sold 770,000 units[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Boy

Man, a Virtual Boy comparison is just the deftest diss one could possibly offer here.

The VB also makes me wonder if AR isn’t practically impossible for the foreseeable future since lots has changed since then, but not the vaporware of this stuff.

Re: Dented Reality: Magic Leap Sees Slow Sales, Steep Losses

#54

Post by Holomakerbot »

daenz wrote: post #12

The thing that got me about the Magic Leap is I couldn't find a reliable video of what it looked like through the lenses. Everything was clearly a CGI overlay or recreation. Reviewers claimed they were prohibited from showing video through the lenses.[0] I can understand not wanting their product misrepresented, but all the secrecy and censorship about it makes me believe it is bad, and I'm not going to spend money o…

That's just how it goes with AR, you can find some amateur clips people have tried to shoot through the lens themselves but it's very difficult. Even Microsoft doesn't shoot through the lens and has gotten similar flack. Best they can do is composite imaging, which actually looks worse than through the lens.

Re: Dented Reality: Magic Leap Sees Slow Sales, Steep Losses

#55

Post by gonehome »

mo1ok wrote: post #23

Let this be a lesson: Working prototypes trump all theory. I heard all silicon valley gurus stating they were "bearish on VR, bullish on "AR". This proliferated as a mantra throughout the industry. I thought they were wrong then, and believed the opposite - because I had a working VR headset that was awesome, but had only heard somewhat meh things about existing AR prototypes. Until great AR hardware comes out, I'm s…

I still think this write up by Michael Abrash (from 2012) is still the best argument about why AR is hard: http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/why-you-wont-see-hard-...

Though there has been some progress since then.

Re: Dented Reality: Magic Leap Sees Slow Sales, Steep Losses

#56

Post by IshKebab »

mo1ok wrote: post #23

Let this be a lesson: Working prototypes trump all theory. I heard all silicon valley gurus stating they were "bearish on VR, bullish on "AR". This proliferated as a mantra throughout the industry. I thought they were wrong then, and believed the opposite - because I had a working VR headset that was awesome, but had only heard somewhat meh things about existing AR prototypes. Until great AR hardware comes out, I'm s…

I've tried Hololens and it is honestly pretty amazing. The field of view really sucks but I'm sure they'll improve that, and it doesn't actually matter quite so much for AR.

But it is still a less compelling proposition than VR. The main market is games where seeing the real world is kind of pointless. Good VR is much more immersive, and being taken to another world is much cooler than seeing some floating planets or fish or whatever in an office (even though that is cool).

Re: Dented Reality: Magic Leap Sees Slow Sales, Steep Losses

#57

Post by Holomakerbot »

IshKebab wrote: post #51
1MoreThing wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that a video through the lenses isn't going to tell you anything about the experience of actually wearing one of these things.

It's going to tell you more than a CGI artist's impression nonsense. People were able to film through the lenses for standard VR glasses. I can't find anyone that tried it for Hololens but given that they also cost several thousand dollars it's probably not that surprising. I have used the Hololens quite a bit and I can't see any reason why you couldn't film from the eye's point of view.

Notice that zero VR companies show you through the lens footage. This is not restricted to Magic Leap. You can find amateur attempts by owners to shoot through Magic Leap, Hololens, and various VR headsets if you go on Youtube and Twitter. But no company does this at all. Just another misunderstanding by people here who think they've found another reason to nitpick at Magic leap, but it's a widespread industry issue. VR is actually the worst about this because they only show straight from the PC output with none of the limitations you actually experience like FOV and screen door effect.

Re: Dented Reality: Magic Leap Sees Slow Sales, Steep Losses

#58

Post by Dylan16807 »

MBCook wrote: post #21
vassilyk wrote: post #17

How are we even surprised. They are the Theranos of AR. They pushed the 'fake it until you make it' mantra a bit far, and now reality is biting hard. Hopefully they will still trigger a revolution of some sort... but this was predictable.

The difference is their product works (to some degree) as opposed to being total vaporware like Theranos.

The original product is still vaporware.

Re: Dented Reality: Magic Leap Sees Slow Sales, Steep Losses

#59

Post by Holomakerbot »

nrp wrote: post #7

Karl Guttag estimated in the same range last month: https://www.kguttag.com/2019/11/10/all-magic-leap-patents-ha... His whole blog is a pretty compelling read on the current and near future state of AR.

He's underestimating (though not by a whole lot probably). The 6k numbers from the above article refer to the first 6 months sale. Guttag is talking about the last 18 months. Also doesn't account for the headsets that have been seeded to devs.

Re: Dented Reality: Magic Leap Sees Slow Sales, Steep Losses

#60

Post by dang »

The Information has been unlocking the occasional article for HN users for a while now. I asked if they'd do that for this one and they agreed. Thanks!

(The submitted URL was https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/06/report-magic-leaps-early-d..., which made sense while the original source was behind a hard paywall. Changed now.)

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