Facebook buys Oculus Rift for $2B

[Icemage]

So yeah, this is a thing that happened today.

Facebook Buys Oculus Rift Virtual Reality Manufacturer - TIME

Facebook will acquire virtual reality technology company Oculus VR for $2 billion, the social networking giant announced Tuesday. Oculus makes the Oculus Rift, a virtual reality headset originally funded on Kickstarter.

The deal includes $400 million in cash and $1.6 billion in Facebook stock, as well as an additional $300 million if Oculus meets certain performance targets. Oculus will continue to operate independently at its headquarters in Irvine, Calif. The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2014.

Though the Rift has been pitched as a video gaming device, Facebook plans to use its technology for communications, media and other forms of entertainment. In a conference call with analysts, Zuckerberg said virtual reality has the potential to be the next great computing evolution, following the transition from desktop computers to mobile devices.

“Oculus has the potential to be the most social platform ever, ”he said. ‘“Imagine sharing not just moments with your friends online, but entire experiences and adventures.”

In a post on his Facebook profile page, Zuckerberg presented such scenarios as sitting courtside at a sports event, studying with a group of students or consulting face-to-face with a doctor as potential uses for virtual reality.

More at the link.

This is very strange, and frankly a bit upsetting. It's good in one sense, that VR is getting a massive corporate push, in a way that something like Virtual Boy never had. It's bad in another because Facebook doesn't care about anything but generating revenue through building their own community.

Also: Kickstarter backers get nothing out of this aside from their rewards. Yay? Glad I didn't back this.


Icemage

[Malacite]

Re: Facebook buys Oculus Rift for $2B

Morpheus or bust.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Facebook buys Oculus Rift for $2B

So yeah, this is a thing that happened today.

Facebook Buys Oculus Rift Virtual Reality Manufacturer - TIME



More at the link.

This is very strange, and frankly a bit upsetting. It's good in one sense, that VR is getting a massive corporate push, in a way that something like Virtual Boy never had. It's bad in another because Facebook doesn't care about anything but generating revenue through building their own community.

Also: Kickstarter backers get nothing out of this aside from their rewards. Yay? Glad I didn't back this.


Icemage

In this thread:

- Icemage posting his inevitable rationale for backing the non-viable Morpheus. Facebook is evil.
- Implying Virtual Boy was VR when we all know it wasn't. It was crap rushed out to die because more R&D time would have sunk it harder at that point. Virtual Boy broke the Miyamoto axiom about rushed and delayed products both ways.

[Feba]

Re: Facebook buys Oculus Rift for $2B

Facebook wanting to move into the gaming arena isn't that surprising. It's already a huge part of their revenue model. They're also becoming more and more integrated with "traditional" games lately as well.

I think a lot of companies are seeing this as a time when the gaming industry is going to go much more horizontal, and the traditionally big companies are going to have less control over the medium as a whole. We saw it with film, music, and books already; the only real limitation for games doing the same thing is open hardware, which is starting to become a thing now.

[Icemage]

Re: Facebook buys Oculus Rift for $2B

In this thread:

- Icemage posting his inevitable rationale for backing the non-viable Morpheus. Facebook is evil.
- Implying Virtual Boy was VR when we all know it wasn't. It was crap rushed out to die because more R&D time would have sunk it harder at that point. Virtual Boy broke the Miyamoto axiom about rushed and delayed products both ways.

Facebook isn't evil. I use Facebook. However, I don't trust them with the gaming aspect of VR, any more than I trust them with the gaming aspect on their own service.

I don't particularly think Sony's Project Morpheus is all that cool either. Too many baby steps, and tethered still means that the tech had better blow people away and generate massive word of mouthy. I'll reserve judgment on it until I have a chance to try it for myself.

I will say that past VR technologies I've used are pretty cool, but I'm expecting these VR helmets from Oculus/FB and Sony to clock in at $500+++ (probably higher). That's too pricy to be a commercially viable product with limited applications.

Also, I like how you imply Virtual Boy isn't VR. Rushed, yes. Terrible, yes. But still VR. Nintendo was just two decades too early.


Icemage

[Malacite]

Re: Facebook buys Oculus Rift for $2B

And it probably gave us all eye cancer.

[Firewind]

Re: Facebook buys Oculus Rift for $2B

Occulus Rift and Morpheus are things I love the concept of. The main issue has to be what sort of games would be viable for the hardware, and how well supported and developed it would be.

[Carter]

Re: Facebook buys Oculus Rift for $2B

Morpheus or bust.

Depends on the price...

- - - Updated - - -

@ Icemage - I thought the OR is tethered also?

And...the price point that they are aiming for must be around the £300 (top end) mark as the dev kits (v.2) are $350.

Retail units should be cheaper than the dev models...right? Given mass production etc...

[Icemage]

Re: Facebook buys Oculus Rift for $2B

@ Icemage - I thought the OR is tethered also?

Yep. As I said, tethered is a big minus in convenience, and it applies equally to Oculus as well as Morpheus.

And...the price point that they are aiming for must be around the £300 (top end) mark as the dev kits (v.2) are $350.

We shall see I suppose. If they can commoditize the price down to $250 or so they've got a chance, but they're not in the business of breaking even, and I'll wager those dev kits are being sold more or less at cost.

Retail units should be cheaper than the dev models...right? Given mass production etc...

Not necessarily. They have to make "some" money off of retail, otherwise what's the point? Unless they're charging licensing for making software for the platform, in which case they'll get even less software developed...


Icemage

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Facebook buys Oculus Rift for $2B

VR in gaming is nice, but what I would really like to see (ha!) is realizing visual relationship between data in a true(?!) 3D environment.

A helmet'ed version of Minority Report would be just the start... I'm already thinking about a hazmat suit helmet that combine a wide array of sensors (normal visual range camera, IR camera, UV camera, sonar, laser range finder, air chemical analyzer, etc.) and produce enhanced and augmented vision for the wearer.

Not that Facebook would be into those things, but the point is evaluating VR from the perspective of gaming is a little limiting.

Facebook became a 150 billion USD affair by giving people a powerful way to visualize their social network--imagine how much bigger it can become if it can give millions of people a magnitude more powerful new tool to visually analyze network and other types of complex data?

Today, we say "google that" to mean search; in ten years, we may say "rift that" to mean analyze massive amount of data visually, in real-time.

[Feba]

Re: Facebook buys Oculus Rift for $2B

why wouldn't they be? google glass and google goggles are essentially a primitive form of AR, and there are clearly social media uses for it. Camera -> Facial analysis -> Social Media integration is all possible with current technology, the only part we're really missing is a good HUD. I think it'll be fairly common for us to be able to pull up people's walls simply by looking at them; your friends' recent status updates could float next to them while you chat, etc.