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Comment by petersellers | Hacker News Reader

> Carmack had been pushing for an all-out device but got sidelined by Zuck's push towards cheap and scale

Is that true? From this article[1], it sounds like he had been pushing for cheap headsets, not expensive ones:

> There he talked about his internal efforts to push for the development of a "super cheap, super lightweight" Meta VR headset that could come in at "$250 and 250 grams." Instead, Meta has put its recent VR hardware efforts behind the heavily overdesigned and expensive $1,500 Quest Pro. "We're not building that [cheap, light] headset today, but I keep trying," Carmack said with some exasperation during the keynote.

[1] https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/12/john-carmack-leaves-m...

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Well, as an Oculus customer I can say that the Apple vision is far far from Meta one, beyond what, with all due respect, Carmack thinks about Meta failures.

Apple includes a complete vision of an operating system on a new device while Meta vision is much narrow: run VR apps in a VR device (which runs Android). In the vision of Apple you will run the same, again the same!, apps but with a new experience in a new form-factor. In addition of that you will run the obvious specific apps. I imagine that they will launch GarageBand anytime and use a piano or guitar in VR. Microsoft tried to bring a new operating system for multiple form factors (e.g. tablet) which turns to be an messed UX. I really don't think many people understand the Apple edge.

Also, I think the Meta apps strategy is completely catastrophic: I don't see a significant amount of apps in their ecosystem. When Nintendo, Microsoft (Xbox), and Sony launch a new device they have a good list of games in the pipeline.

I can also add that I contacted several people at Meta about a specific VR initiative and nobody answered...

I was excited to see Carmack working on VR, but in retrospect he may have been exactly the wrong guy. Romero knew what 3D shooters needed to be, Carmack knew how to make that happen within the constraints of the day.

With Carmack’s guidance, Facebook made an eminently buildable VR headset, a perfect device for the constraints that limited VR at the time. I bet they could have satisfied a ton of demand if they’d shown anything that got people excited enough to actually have demand.

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