At the end of last year, Magic Leap launched its Independent Creators Program in a bid to foster new ideas and content for its headset, the Magic Leap One. This week the company has announced the successful applicants out of a pool of 6,500.
Magic Leap has chosen 31 companies to participate, provide independent developers with the financial, development and marketing support necessary. Those picked include Resolution Games – the studio behind Magic Leap title Angry Birds FPS: First Person Slingshot – Funktronic Labs (Starbear: Taxi, Cosmic Trip), Metanaut (Gadgeteer), Felix & Paul Studios (Marshall from Detroit, Traveling While Black), Within and Immersiv.
“We had so much fun creating our first Magic Leap title, Angry Birds FPS: First Person Slingshot. We’re super excited to have been selected as a Creator and look forward to pushing the possibilities of gameplay when creating a mixed reality experience from the ground up. We can’t wait to get it out and into the hands of players,” said Tommy Palm, CEO and co-founder of Resolution Games in a statement.
Such was the quality of the applications Magic Leap decided to award nearly 200 additional applicants with Magic Leap One devices so they can continue developing their projects.
Magic Leap expects the mixed reality (MR) experiences developed as part of the Independent Creator Program to begin launching within the next 90 days. All titles resulting from the Independent Creator Program are expected to be released within the next 12 months.
The Magic Leap One Creator Edition was announced just over a year ago, with a retail price starting from $2,295 USD. Originally the US only, now anyone can purchase the device from Magic Leap’s website. Still very much a developers edition rather than final consumer version, studios have still created gameplay experiences like Insomniac Games with Seedling and Funomena with Luna: Moondust Garden.
The system is comprised of three parts, the main headset (called Lightwear), a battery and processing unit termed ‘Lightpack’, and a 6 degrees of freedom (6DoF) movement controller. Magic Leap’s main rival, Microsoft’s HoloLens recently unveiled the HoloLens 2 at Mobile World Congress (MWC19), improving aspects such as comfort and FoV. As further details regarding Magic Leap are released, VRFocus will keep you updated.