Facebook buys Oculus VR for US$2Billion

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iPwnz

iPwnz

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Looks like Zuckerberg is on his way to world domination for he's buying the Oculus VR, the guys who made the awesome Oculus Rift which is a great start to virtual reality gaming. NERVE GEAR FTW!! (Go google)
http://www.joystiq.com/2014/03/25/facebook-buys-oculus-vr/
http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/25/5547456/facebook-buying-oculus-for-2-billion


Facebook has acquired Oculus VR, the company building the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, for $2 billion. Oculus will keep its headquarters in Irvine, California.

"We are excited to work with Mark and the Facebook team to deliver the very best virtual reality platform in the world," Oculus co-founder and CEO Brendan Iribe said in a press release. "We believe virtual reality will be heavily defined by social experiences that connect people in magical, new ways. It is a transformative and disruptive technology, that enables the world to experience the impossible, and it's only just the beginning."
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Facebook plans to purchase Oculus VR, maker of the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, for $2 billion. The deal is comprised of $400 million in cash and 23.1 million shares of Facebook stock. Facebook announced its surprise purchase via a blog post. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has also revealed Facebook's reasons for the deal. "Oculus's mission is to enable you to experience the impossible. Their technology opens up the possibility of completely new kinds of experiences," Zuckerberg says. "Immersive gaming will be the first, and Oculus already has big plans here that won't be changing and we hope to accelerate. The Rift is highly anticipated by the gaming community, and there's a lot of interest from developers in building for this platform."
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So what's app is more costly than this vr stuff? Or maybe founders of what's app know how to bargain really well.
I wonder if you login to Facebook will you get logged in to all these other accounts too automatically like Google does with Gmail & YouTube etc?
 
Who knows. Looks like greed to me. Oculus VR guys got the funds they needed from kickstarter. If they had needed more money I'm sure the community would pitch in to help. But selling off something which was originally funded by the community to another group, Facebook (what could possibly be worse than facebook and Zueckerberg?) in that is...the most stupid thing I've heard of in recent years. As the guys on /r said, FB is not a "Gaming" site and will never be one but Oculus is made for gamers. I can imagine how the guys who donated to the kickstarter feel. And think about this, "Kindly log into your Facebook account to proceed" when you try to use the Rift. In short I would say the Oculus Rift project is screwed.
 
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One of the best replies on Reddit was that people want virtual reality to stay away from social sites. They want privacy for themselves while playing.
With this deal, I guess everyone will know what you do with vr, what game you play everyday etc. Not to mention countless ads. All those who invested in occulus previously should pull out. The product they get might be different than what they wanted now that FB is involved.
 
Google and Facebook - once beloved and unique companies, now among most hated ones.

Well, at least you can escape from Facebook if you want to.
 
6pack said:
So what's app is more costly than this vr stuff? Or maybe founders of what's app know how to bargain really well.
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WhatsApp also came with 400 million odd users. Which is more valuable to FB. They care about data and numbers (and may not be about whatsapp at all, who knows :P)
 
I wouldn't say $600 for something straight out of the jetsons/star trek is too much, especially considering that people will need a $1.5k rig to use it properly. I would wager we would get mid range VR sets for ~$200-300 after a few years.

Looking at this price, I think MS HoloLens will release just a touch under $1k
 
soggy316 said:
especially considering that people will need a $1.5k rig to use it properly.
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It's a very niche market at this point, not all people with expensive rigs want VR. There's also a lot of unanswered questions with the content availability except for the initial supported titles.
There will also be alternatives like the Morpheus and Vive and it's not clear at this time if game devs can and will support multiple VR headsets.
If adoption rates and software sales are low it'll be DOA and you will be left with a glorified POV porn viewer not something out of Star Trek.
Not to forget it's not an option for people with spectacles and a closed moist environment is a sureshot recipe for pink eyes.
I do want it to succeed though and hopefully the price of admission will come down in the next 2 years as you mentioned, it's pretty much a beta test at this point and strictly for early adopters.
 
psyph3r said:
It's a very niche market at this point, not all people with expensive rigs want VR. There's also a lot of unanswered questions with the content availability except for the initial supported titles.
There will also be alternatives like the Morpheus and Vive and it's not clear at this time if game devs can and will support multiple VR headsets.
If adoption rates and software sales are low it'll be DOA and you will be left with a glorified POV porn viewer not something out of Star Trek.
Not to forget it's not an option for people with spectacles and a closed moist environment is a sureshot recipe for pink eyes.
I do want it to succeed though and hopefully the price of admission will come down in the next 2 years as you mentioned, it's pretty much a beta test at this point and strictly for early adopters.
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True, but all tech has to start somewhere, and early adopters have always been the guinea pigs :D.
 
True that. I have zero expectations for this thing. However, they are releasing it some sort of games and tonnes of POV porn also available out there. Just want to see VR.

I thought of getting the glyph. Cancelled it.
 
soggy316 said:
I wouldn't say $600 for something straight out of the jetsons/star trek is too much, especially considering that people will need a $1.5k rig to use it properly. I would wager we would get mid range VR sets for ~$200-300 after a few years.

Looking at this price, I think MS HoloLens will release just a touch under $1k
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Curious to know what you'd consider mid-range VR considering its either VR which is completely immersive or no VR at all. Can't imagine anything in-between unlike other AV equipments.
 
No comment on the pricing. It will all be about the contents and titles.
Even IF I had the $ i wouldn't pre-order it yet. I dont like getting frustrated by half-made products. :/
But i'm excited by Vive and Sony's Morpheus and I have this feeling that the latter would be the best of them all.
 
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