Oculus Cofounder Palmer Luckey says Meta's Horizon Worlds 'is terrible today'

Palmer Luckey sold Oculus to Facebook (now Meta) in 2014 and officially washed his hands of his VR start-up in 2017, but that hasn’t kept him from watching where some of the technology founded by him is headed. Luckey has apparently been watching Meta’s direction with the metaverse and its Horizon Worlds application. He thinks it’s terrible right now. However, he also thinks it has potential to become something far more impressive at some point in the future.

Luckey shared these specific opinions about Meta and the state of Horizon Worlds during the Wall Street Journal Tech Live conference on October 25, 2022. During the event, Luckey took part in an interview in which he spoke to his opinions on Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, the metaverse, Horizon Worlds, and more. It was here that Luckey shared he’s not a fan of Horizon Worlds as it is now, but he believes in its potential to improve.

Palmer Luckey compared Horizon Worlds to a "project car" in which it is very much not where it needs to be, but could become something very impressive when it's finished.
Source: Twitter

Luckey would go on to compare Zuckerberg’s focus on developing Horizon Worlds to his own startup of Oculus before it was successful.

“Mark Zuckerberg is the biggest virtual reality fan in the entire world,” Luckey shared. “He is putting more money and more time into it than anyone has ever done in history… People say ‘is Horizon Worlds a good product?’ I don’t think it’s a good product. It’s not fun. It’s not good. I think most of the people on the team would agree that it’s not currently a good product… I look at it and I see something that is being developed in the open, developed in public, and it is terrible today, but it could be amazing in the future.”

Luckey sold Oculus to Meta in 2014 for $2 billion USD and stayed with the company until his exit under Facebook in 2017. Despite moving on to start a defense technology company specializing in drones and sensors for the military, Luckey has continued to share strong opinions about the development and direction of VR. His take on Horizon Worlds is interesting to say the least. It most certainly leaves a lot to be desired, but will it bloom and become something more worthwhile as Luckey predicts? Only time and Zuckerberg dedication to the project will tell.