The Magic Leap One, at least to justify its price for the average customer, needs a handful of high-quality content. Many of the people who did review it, don’t even think it’s consumer-ready. I agree, in a sense that as for its current status, it’s very expensive for a futuristic gadget that once you bought it, you will probably find very little to do with it.
The content is the most important thing for a Mixed Reality headset. An average consumer will definitely not walk with this thing on the street. I think that in many people’s mind, they envision mixed reality glasses as looking more casual, small, lightweight, one that can wear in the street without making look like they were taken out of a cyberpunk movie.
When you buy this Magic Leap One and come one with it, you will only have a handful of MR experiences to experiment with. Even if there were like 50 apps an games, still, it doesn’t ensure that you’ll find many of those apps to be ones that you actually enjoy or find useful.
Even with thousands of AR apps out there on the App Store, I personally don’t find all of them to be excited or useful.
Now we are entering the time where we can assume that quite a few developers (I don’t know the exact number) have bought the Magic Leap One and will start developing apps for it. We might see some ports of other AR games ARKit or ARCore with mixed reality enhancements and of course many original apps that were designed from the ground up to use this new technology’s capabilities.
We also need to consider the fact that the Magic Leap One headset launches only in six US cities only, but Magic Leap intends to expand its reach to other cities and eventually make it available internationally on other markets.
Now, if you were a developer, you obviously want to be among the first to make an app for it. I’ve seen it when ARKit first went out. This means that we are going to get into a race where we might see quite a few apps launching not so far after the headset’s release date, but those apps will probably feel very unpolished and not complete. Some of those developers will want to make a name for themselves and have their app features, rather than making it expecting high sales, as the market will be very limited in size, at least if you compare it to ARKit, where there were hundreds of millions of compatible devices already out there for developers to develop Augmented Reality apps for.
Find more statistics at Statista
When we look at the VR headset growth, we can see a big spike in demand year-to-year. According to this chart on Statista. In 2015 we had 6.7 million virtual reality users, the number grew each year with 167 million years in 2018, with the number of ‘Early Majority’ is approx. doubles each year. The Early Majority is a segment of the population to adopt an innovative technology. The graph also has shown consistent growth of early adopters throughout the years until the present day.
Now the question is whether Mixed Reality will follow suit. Now, I am referring to MR as a different segment to AR, although some mixed between the two (AR/MR). Mixed Reality is a different technology, that although has a lot in common with AR, incorporates more advanced technology that allows it to seamlessly blend virtual content in the environment (not just overlap it) and of course these are MR glasses, which is in its own category compared to AR products on mobile devices (ie. phones, tablets).
Because of that, Magic Leap One mixed reality headset with its external computing device, remind me more of the beginning of the virtual reality era than the mobile AR one. Mobile AR gives users the idea to know what to expect, more or less, when using the Magic Leap One headset, as mobile VR was for the hardcore VR headset, but of course, there is a significant technological advancement that allows those more advanced technologies to deliver fundamentally better experiences.
Now Mixed Reality has the potential to do the same. If we look at a similar VR growth signals, we can expect Magic Leap to become more widely available only in a few years from launch. We also need to keep in mind that it’s not like PC owners that either already had the minimum PC requirement (or up) or needed to just upgrade their graphics card. Magic Leap One is the whole bundle, you either buy it as it is or not buy it at all. Of course, there was always the option to use a high-end PC computing power to fuel the mixed reality experience, and it was, it would definitely be tethered. However, the future of MR is to be independent and completely mobile. Although the visual fidelity would be times greater, it will be counterproductive and be working against the future uses of these type of product. The goal is for MR glasses to be usable on the outdoors, not just indoors.
I probably wouldn’t get out in the street wearing the Magic Leap headset, it’s still very bulky and even Magic Leap itself mentioned that the first iteration is meant for indoor use.
Magic Leap One called its first headset “Magic Leap One Creator Edition”, and this name is given to signifies that this first headset is not mean for the mass market but rather for creators who want to start experimenting and developing apps for it, and early majority obviously, without needing to mention that.
So if I was an average consumer, would I buy the Magic Leap One? At this point, my answer would be, probably not. This is the time in which this fresh new device will be tested to its limits and developers try to understand its full capabilities and of course, try to envision the next big future app for it. Gaming companies will obviously make their own move and try to reimagine what best games will work with this new medium.
That being said, if I could afford it, I would get it without thinking for a second. I am among those who are very excited about new technologies, let alone those of AR/MR/VR (XR). Content will come pretty soon and will continue to grow over time. As for right now, I think it will take a few years until we see the mass market adopting these new MR devices. Let’s not forget the competition, especially Apple, which has a very strong early adopter adaptation. Of course, if Apple gets into the market, I think that things will speed up much faster, so we can’t accurately asses when it will be the best time to buy a Mixed Reality headset for the average consumer. Things might change for the better or worse based on the competition.
So when will Magic Leap One reaches its full mass-market potential? As for now, it seems it will take a few years time and not with this first creator edition. I’ve heard some technology analyzers say it can be even around 10 years, but I’m quite positive there will be many surprises that will change those expectations for the better. I guess we’ll need to just wait and see.