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by joefourier 3222 days ago
It makes little sense to say that AR will render VR pointless. They have fundamentally different purposes - AR (as stated in the name) adds your existing reality, while VR replaces it entirely. If you're playing a game, AR would put a monster in your living room, while VR would put you in a completely virtual environment.

Also, what do you mean AR is rumoured to see the light? AR already exists; see Hololens, META, and others. Magic Leap has developed interesting prototypes but has failed to develop any unique practical consumer implementation.
1 comments
tigershark 3221 days ago
Hololens, Meta and the others are only Dev kits with general consensus for a consumer version in 2019. I would like to see any reliable source for your Magic Leap statement. As far as I know the rumours currently put a Magic Leap dev kit announcement by the end of this year. And there is already a product equivalent that has been successfully demoed to the board on February. And as for your first point you can do VR with an AR device, you can't do the opposite. And the AR part is the most important experience that will permit you to bring your device everywhere. With VR you will be confined to a room without any movement possibilities in an uncontrolled environment.
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joefourier 3221 days ago
http://www.kguttag.com/2016/11/20/magic-leap-separating-magi...

Magic Leap is certainly capable of releasing a dev kit, but it will not feature most of the technologies present in their prototypes.

Yes, AR and VR can be combined into a single device, and that will most likely be the way to mainstream commercial success in the future, but at present, current headsets offer an incomparable experience in terms of immersion and pure enjoyment. Have you tried the Vive or Oculus with touch controllers? Being tethered to a gaming PC allows for much higher graphical performance than a mobile device.

I see no reason for such animosity towards VR. Saying that current VR devices are pointless because VR will be later combined with AR devices is like saying the Palm Pilot was pointless because its functionality would be later included with smartphones.

(I would argue that the end-goal of VR is actually quite divergent from AR; the future of VR would be the Matrix, where your mind itself is in a completely simulated environment. In the mean time, we make do with the Vive.)

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