Microsoft, Qualcomm, and Magic Leap will drive the future of Mixed Reality Toolkit 3 (MRTK3)

The future of Mixed Reality Toolkit 3 (MRTK3) became bleak when Microsoft laid off the entire team behind it early this year. Surprisingly, back in May, Microsoft announced that Mixed Reality Toolkit 3 will be generally available in September but did not reveal any information on the future development. Today, Microsoft provided more details on the future of MRTK3.

First, Microsoft is moving MRTK3 to an independent open-source organization in which Microsoft, Qualcomm and Magic Leap will be steering committee members. This will remove the previous constraints that made it difficult for 3rd party developers to introduce other endpoints and influence feature roadmaps.

“With Magic Leap joining Microsoft as equal stakeholders on the MRTK steering committee, we hope to enrich the current ecosystem and help our developer community create richer, more immersive experiences that span platforms. Additionally, our support for MRTK3 will allow for simple porting of MRTK3 apps from other OpenXR devices to our platform,” wrote Magic Leap team.

Also, since Qualcomm is joining the steering committee, two of the original architects of MRTK are returning to the project. So, their expertise and contributions will be really helpful to take MRTK3 program forward.