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[DragonSworne]

Will I have to log into Facebook to play my anime waifu VR game?

Is Facebook big in Japan?

 

[EVIL]

Going to re-post this here since this thread seems to be allot more active.

I was as put off by this news as the rest, even contributing in knee jerk reactions. But after cooling down and put some thought into this, I don't think this is a bad thing in the slightest.

You need to look and think about what Facebook is trying to do here, which is to build an ecosystem around future VR. What do you need for an eco system to flourish and become profitable? A stable platform. Facebook is a software company with no experience in hardware. It would be silly to think they would redesign everything, and strip the company for parts, they have no experience in this and its allot more cost effective to let Oculus do its thing and the long term road map of Oculus has always been to bring VR to the masses.

In the coming years VR will remain a bumpy road. Mainstream adaptation will likely take 5 years if not more (because of power requirements for example, and because the idea of presence is not something you can describe on a poster or print in a magazine). Facebook understands this and thus acquired Oculus to enable them to bring the vision of VR to life and is in it for the long road.

Sure Oculus was doing fine on its own, but it had its financial limitations. That timeline of 5 years would probably have been 10 if there wouldn't be a large company to invest some serious money into it. And if it wouldn't have been Facebook, who else would have invested in it? Hardware companies? Those are even more likely to strip Oculus to parts and build something they think how it should work. Oculus has the best minds in the industry working on VR and its rare to find this amount of talent in one company, and its good business to let them do what they are good at.

Hell in 5 years when VR is taking off because of Facebooks investment in it, there will be many more similar VR headsets, that could become allot better. Oculus managed to give large companies and even the government a run for its money by producing better VR on a budget of just $300 with the DK1 (compared to the 2000/10000 dollar costing HMD's from Professional VR hardware developers) and I am sure some new tech company could give Oculus a run for its money when the right pieces are in play.

For the coming years the rift is dependent on the user having powerful hardware to power its experiences. The audience that has this kind of hardware are PC gamers, and so it will remain a product for PC gamers for years to come. The rift will remain a peripheral for allot of years and in those years Facebook can't do shit with it. Its not a platform, there is no OS running in the rift. Its just a device attached to a wire (and in a few years, wireless) that connects to your PC running whatever you want. They can't technically apply any restrictions on it.

For VR to become the 'future' that Facebook and Oculus wants it to be, it needs to not only push its own hardware but also the tech industry around it. Having Facebook's money and support, allot more hardware companies are looking at VR with more then a mild interest. This pushes GPU hardware, pushes developers to spend more time investing in performance then just graphical splendor (allot of graphical tricks don't work in VR like normal and parallax mapping). Pushes display technologies to build custom tech made for VR, meaning higher resolution screens, faster frame rates, less latency etc. (what works for cellphones doesn't automatically work for good VR)
These tech developments aren't just good for VR, but also good for the gaming and interactive entertainment industry as a whole.

So what do I think Facebook wants to do with VR once allot more people are interested in the technology and not only the gaming community (will take 10 years if not more)?
The Metaverse, a version of the internet that uses VR to transport people into a world that's accessible by everyone. Want to hold a meeting, do so via the metaverse, where you instance an area where you and your colleagues around the world can interact naturally with each other within virtual space. Wan't to hang out and play a game? just meet up with your buddies in the strangest of worlds. It will be a place where everybody can explore, create and enjoy together the countless worlds, games and experiences. Why work trough abstract layers that are tablets, phones and PC's when you can just put on a VR headset and use your body and all your senses to interact and create.

Will there be bad experiences? sure, its unstoppable, there is always a dark side, but maybe, just maybe, having a system in place that prevents and filters out the bad stuff, like hacking, illegal virtual pornography, a sense of dis-connectivity from the real world. These are problems that come with VR that you can't stop with an open free form environment, so maybe having this global system that watches you, will make people think before they act and will prevent these dark sides of VR to become prevalent. I think in the large scale, having the risk of ads in VR is a minor issue and there will be hardware and software that will stop those ads dead in its tracks.

I don't worry about the future of VR, it can only become better and better.

 

[Cyrano]

Evil, the question you've failed to address, and the most important one is: what is Facebook trying to do here? Facebook is giving a large sum of money to a company they seemingly know little about. They aren't a hardware company and right now what the Oculus Rift needs is hardware expertise. Facebook gave the Rift developers a lot of money to do what exactly? Everything so far that has been released has been painfully vague as to what the money is going towards. Even in the investor meeting it seemed like the questions on all the investors' minds were those they couldn't answer, "How does this benefit us, and what is all this money going to be spent on?"

 

[Mindwipe]

http://dudehugespeaks.tumblr.com/post/80832803371/riftbook

More importantly, they needed an ecosystem. IF their system is going to be (hopefully) a dedicated system instead of a (ugh) peripheral they need their version of whatever the app store would be. Your device is only as good as the store and community around it; if users can’t say shut up and take my money, if developers can’t post their work then the device will ultimately flounder. Facebook can assist with this sort of thing, as well as having a multi billion user reach.

I wish I had time today to make a "vomiting everywhere" gif.

It is a peripheral. Ecosystem is a term only ever used by hardware manufacturers who want to censor or rentseek on their platform.

FB might have it's own store, but there's no way this will be the only place where you can buy Oculous Rift compatibile games.

Now who's making daft assumptions?

Even if it's not, there's still absolutely nothing to say that Rift hardware won't have a killswitch for apps Facebook doesn't approve of.

 

[Seanspeed]

I have tested some other Oculus Rift then, that doesn't use external camera.

Yea, the first dev kit didn't have positional tracking and so no camera.

But the new one does. Its not some add-on, optional feature or anything either, its an intergral part of the VR experience they're trying to create.

And we can be reasonably sure it will be there for the consumer version as well, unless they've got some innovative new way of doing positional tracking that we haven't heard of yet(unlikely).

 

[Mindwipe]

For the coming years the rift is dependent on the user having powerful hardware to power its experiences. The audience that has this kind of hardware are PC gamers, and so it will remain a product for PC gamers for years to come. The rift will remain a peripheral for allot of years and in those years Facebook can't do shit with it. Its not a platform, there is no OS running in the rift. Its just a device attached to a wire (and in a few years, wireless) that connects to your PC running whatever you want. They can't technically apply any restrictions on it.

This is flat out false.

The Rift still runs firmware. It still presents proprietary APIs, that can easily be locked down by developer authentication certificates on a per application basis. We *know* it will have a software launcher by Oculus, and it is very easy (and very likely) that it will be the default when the headset is turned on on the consumer version.

 

[More_Badass]

Evil, the question you've failed to address, and the most important one is: what is Facebook trying to do here? Facebook is giving a large sum of money to a company they seemingly know little about. They aren't a hardware company and right now what the Oculus Rift needs is hardware expertise. Facebook gave the Rift developers a lot of money to do what exactly? Everything so far that has been released has been painfully vague as to what the money is going towards. Even in the investor meeting it seemed like the questions on all the investors' minds were those they couldn't answer, "How does this benefit us, and what is all this money going to be spent on?"

I asked before, isn't this same as Google jumping into the phone/tablet market? What did Google - a company revolving around a search engine and other browser software - know about making mobile hardware? And yet, Android devices seems like they've been pretty successful

What does Facebook - a company revolving around a social media site - know about making VR tech? And yet...well, we'll see

 

[MaLDo]

Evil, the question you've failed to address, and the most important one is: what is Facebook trying to do here? Facebook is giving a large sum of money to a company they seemingly know little about. They aren't a hardware company and right now what the Oculus Rift needs is hardware expertise. Facebook gave the Rift developers a lot of money to do what exactly? Everything so far that has been released has been painfully vague as to what the money is going towards. Even in the investor meeting it seemed like the questions on all the investors' minds were those they couldn't answer, "How does this benefit us, and what is all this money going to be spent on?"

Options are endless. For example, a percentage of every transaction into multiverse.

 

[Cyrano]

I asked before, isn't this same as Google jumping into the phone/tablet market? What did Google - a company revolving around a search engine and other browser software - know about making mobile hardware? And yet, Android devices seems like they've been pretty successful

What does Facebook - a company revolving around a social media site - know about making VR tech? And yet...well, we'll see

You could be right, but if I were an investor, I'm not taking a 2 billion dollar gamble on a hunch.

Options are endless. For example, a percentage of every transaction into multiverse.

At this point you have to ask yourself if developers will cede to such a demand. My suspicion is that some will, but most will not.

And who knows? Maybe Candy Crush and Farmville is all you need. But I don't think it becomes the hardware of choice with such restrictive use conditions.

 

[tino]

Fair enough. Maybe you can explain to me how Steve Jobs created Apple out of a garage? How Nintendo grew into a console manufacturer? How Nokia and Ericsson pretty much pioneered and spearheaded the GSM revolution?

It does happen. It could have happened with Oculus, they just copped out.

Apple has always been a hardware company and the vast majority of their profit was from hardware.

Maybe you should look at how google lost tons of money with motorola and sold it asap and MS couldn't handle the quality control of their console hardware even at the 2nd generation and realize Facebook can't provide any technical expertise to the VR gaggles scene.

 

[SkeptiMism]

I wish I had time today to make a "vomiting everywhere" gif.

It is a peripheral. Ecosystem is a term only ever used by hardware manufacturers who want to censor or rentseek on their platform.

I'm pretty sure their plan was from the start to eventually make it its own device, not just to remain as a peripheral. Imagine PC with its various operating systems.

 

[Seanspeed]

Evil, the question you've failed to address, and the most important one is: what is Facebook trying to do here? Facebook is giving a large sum of money to a company they seemingly know little about. They aren't a hardware company and right now what the Oculus Rift needs is hardware expertise. Facebook gave the Rift developers a lot of money to do what exactly? Everything so far that has been released has been painfully vague as to what the money is going towards. Even in the investor meeting it seemed like the questions on all the investors' minds were those they couldn't answer, "How does this benefit us, and what is all this money going to be spent on?"

I think they just want in on the ground floor. Play the long game, get in on VR early and profit later on.

There's certainly risk involved. I doubt they have any sure-fire way of making sure they get back everything on their investment. But they can afford to take this chance. If I was in their position, I would certainly do it as well. VR is primed to be a big deal sooner or later and those who can get ahead early can potentially make out like bandits and dominate, or at least be one of the big dogs of the industry.

They could have maybe also tried waiting and buying up another VR upstart company for cheaper, but I'd say that's actually riskier. Oculus have the headstart, with the knowhow and the people and the momentum, so competing against Oculus would not be a safe bet. Better to spend more, buy the leading company, eliminate the toughest competition they'd face, get in early and maximize chances of success.

 

[SkeptiMism]

At this point you have to ask yourself if developers will cede to such a demand. My suspicion is that some will, but most will not.

How would it be any different to developers having to pay royalties on every platform at the moment? That is including the micro transactions on mobile devices.

 

[Cyrano]

I think they just want in on the ground floor. Play the long game, get in on VR early and profit later on.

There's certainly risk involved. I doubt they have any sure-fire way of making sure they get back everything on their investment. But they can afford to take this chance. If I was in their position, I would certainly do it as well. VR is primed to be a big deal sooner or later and those who can get ahead early can potentially make out like bandits and dominate, or at least be one of the big dogs of the industry.

They could have maybe also tried waiting and buying up another VR upstart company for cheaper, but I'd say that's actually riskier. Oculus have the headstart, with the knowhow and the people and the momentum, so competing against Oculus would not be a safe bet. Better to spend more, buy the leading company, eliminate the toughest competition they'd face, get in early and maximize chances of success.

I still cannot picture this as a device for the masses in its current state. If they can reduce it to the size of a pair of glasses, I'll agree with you. And I suspect that's farther off than most people think.

 

[Mindwipe]

I want to know how Facebook can monopolize this. How? The Oculus Rift is just one device, many have been tried before and many can try now, buying Oculus doesn't somehow magically prohibit anyone else from entering the same market. And concerning this walled garden fear, I've no doubt that Facebook will provide some apps just from their page using their crappy app system, that much is certain, however, what precedence is there for saying the Oculus Rift would be tied to that? What peripheral has ever been so tied to a single storefront that it couldn't function with any other software?

Every console accessory ever? Google Glass? The Chromecast? Sony's smartwatch? Ever read the terms of the Kinect PC developer licence?

Sure, but cliffy gives two examples of previous acquisitions where their trajectory hasn't changed. Of course it is a risk, but assuming they were going to be bought out by someone, Facebook is arguably the least likely to mess with the plan short term compared to eg Apple or MS would have.

Errr... there's the minor matter that his examples are bollocks, as we've covered multiple times in this thread. I mean, citing WhatsApp as an example when that deal happened THREE FUCKING WEEKS AGO is just ludicrous. The signed paperwork for the acquisition won't even have been fully executed yet. The notion that it shows Facebook won't ruin the service is ludicrous, and we *have* seen negative changes at Instagram as a direct result of Facebook's ownership.

 

[Cyrano]

How would it be any different to developers having to pay royalties on every platform at the moment? That is including the micro transactions on mobile devices.

It is also telling that more and more developers are developing for the PC as their primary platform.

 

[Mindwipe]

At this point you have to ask yourself if developers will cede to such a demand. My suspicion is that some will, but most will not.

They've ceded to it on iOS, and Android, and Mac OS, and every console ever.

 

[Fattony12000]

Vincent Caravella's take on the matter:

It's the most sensible article I've seen regarding this matter, so far.

 

[Mindwipe]

I'm pretty sure their plan was from the start to eventually make it its own device, not just to remain as a peripheral. Imagine PC with its various operating systems.

The PC market that's becoming steadily more locked down you mean? And has a long history of anti-competitive behaviour from all the major OS manufacturers, and in which the vast majority of the market are pushing app stores from which to try and rentseek on those platforms?

If that was supposed to be reassuring it was a really bad example.

 

[Seanspeed]

I still cannot picture this as a device for the masses in its current state. If they can reduce it to the size of a pair of glasses, I'll agree with you. And I suspect that's farther off than most people think.

Its not gonna be a mass market device from the get-go. Like I said, they'll be playing the long game with this.

 

[Triple U]

As far as I understand it, the HMZ's display and optical system is completely different from the one used in Morpheus, which is basically the exact same basic system as the Oculus setup (single screen, small wide-FOV lenses, using the GPU to distort the image). It's quite plausible that the Oculus method is the most cost-efficient and straightforward way to do it (just like how tracking LEDs is probably the best way to do motion tracking), but the gist is that the HMZs (and early Sony VR prototypes by the looks of it) weren't like the Oculus, but Morpheus is.

It's possible that both companies arrived at the same conclusion separately, or that the HMZ and Morpheus projects are completely separate for some reason (explains that weird HMZ with bad headtracking at CES), but it's pretty likely that Sony drew inspiration from Oculus's design.

Well of course. Driving two different screens is a bit more resource heavy than driving the one and splitting resoultions. HMZ is a premium product with no real hard processing requirements. Its only logical to go for one screen if you can.

I don't know if morpheus uses that circular distortion technique, it hasn't been revealed as far as I know, and looking at the screen output on 2D monitors it doesn't seem like Oculus.

 

[Cyrano]

Its not gonna be a mass market device from the get-go. Like I said, they'll be playing the long game with this.

Well, we'll see. I can't argue with a long game approach since these companies are simply too young to really know what their long game approach looks like.

 

[shinra-bansho]

I asked before, isn't this same as Google jumping into the phone/tablet market? What did Google - a company revolving around a search engine and other browser software - know about making mobile hardware? And yet, Android devices seems like they've been pretty successful

What does Facebook - a company revolving around a social media site - know about making VR tech? And yet...well, we'll see

Google knew nothing about making mobile hardware... which is why they didn't acquire a mobile hardware vendor. They made software applications of utility, predominantly in search, and their primary revenue source is advertising. There's nothing really incongruous with acquiring a nascent operating system platform through which they could further monetize search.

That isn't to say that a company can't diversify. But the example seems off.

 

[SkeptiMism]

It is also telling that more and more developers are developing for the PC as their primary platform.

Well, the thing is that on PC you can of course sell individually on your own site, which is obviously more profitable per game, but the main revenue comes from getting your game to a platform on PC, for example Steam. The platform takes its cut, but the product gets more exposure.

That's about how I'd imagine it will go with VR (in the long run that is). There will be a store for VR games but one isn't forced to use it. Of course, we'll have to see how it goes.

The PC market that's becoming steadily more locked down you mean? And has a long history of anti-competitive behaviour from all the major OS manufacturers, and in which the vast majority of the market are pushing app stores from which to try and rentseek on those platforms?

If that was supposed to be reassuring it was a really bad example.

Well, the main point was about it becoming its own computing platform (in the long run). There will of course be other manufacturers and other operating systems, some of which will be open source. I don't see this as a bad thing, though we'll just have to see how it goes.

 

[Cyrano]

Well, the thing is that on PC you can of course sell individually on your own site, which is obviously more profitable per game, but the main revenue comes from getting your game to a platform on PC, for example Steam. The platform takes its cut, but the product gets more exposure.

Sure, but there's choice. And Steam's not so monolithic as to not have competition. GoG and http://notonsteam.com/ are just a few (Humble Bundle, etc.).

 

[ShapeGSX]

Except he's right. That is pretty much what it looks like.

 

[CadetMahoney]

Counterfeit shadface?

 

[KoopaTheCasual]

Except he's right. That is pretty much what it looks like.

Yea, but the point is it's ironic, and detracts from an otherwise great post. Also Cliffy's random tweet at Notch about partying with teenager girls was easily the most childish comeback I've seen in this ordeal. Cliffy's not really in a position to grandstand.

 

[EVIL]

Evil, the question you've failed to address, and the most important one is: what is Facebook trying to do here? Facebook is giving a large sum of money to a company they seemingly know little about. They aren't a hardware company and right now what the Oculus Rift needs is hardware expertise. Facebook gave the Rift developers a lot of money to do what exactly? Everything so far that has been released has been painfully vague as to what the money is going towards. Even in the investor meeting it seemed like the questions on all the investors' minds were those they couldn't answer, "How does this benefit us, and what is all this money going to be spent on?"

I didn't include it because I thought it would be obvious. They are not doing this for the short term gain, they are investing in VR hoping it will take off and become the next big thing after mobile.

What would you do if you had the chance of investing in a company back in the day that would eventually create the Personal Computer? in hindsight it would be crazy not to invest and eventually become the next Microsoft, or apple.

This is the same level of thinking that Facebook is doing. Invest in future technological possibilities to eventually be able to earn allot of money from it. How this will take shape is unknown, and there is a level of fear that comes from the unknown. But they have allot of time to think about it, and its in their best interest to help develop something that does not turn people away from VR.

VR will take years for it to mature and create the next movement in computing.
At the moment its ties to powerful hardware, but you already see mobile devices becoming more and more powerful, In 5 years you will have a high end PC in your pocket that can drive Virtual reality just fine. In 10 years it will be part of the VR headset themselves.

Its obvious that buying oclus was not an investor decision (as you said, most of them didn't even knew). Facebook just went out and did it because they saw a chance to be at the leading edge of VR once its good enough. They made the first step and there will be more enterprises that will join Facebook in those steps.

 

[Codeblue]

Except he's right. That is pretty much what it looks like.

It looks like that to people who reduced his thoughts to "He's just jealous" and are ignorant to what he actually said.

He doesn't care that Oculus sold out, he cares about having to work with Facebook.

 

[Cyrano]

Evil, by the time any of the technologies you're talking about became publicly traded they were already successful technologies. More telling also that they all built themselves into successful companies, rather than being bought out. VR is not yet successful. It's not even a public product. This is a gamble, hoping for a long game that may or may not come.

 

[Hurt and Scared]

p.s. Notch, your cancelling Minecraft makes you look like a pouty kid who is taking his ball and going home. It’s a bratty and petty move and it saddens me greatly.

 

[ShapeGSX]

It looks like that to people who reduced his thoughts to "He's just jealous" and are ignorant to what he actually said.

He doesn't care that Oculus sold out, he cares about having to work with Facebook.

Still don't see the big deal about working with a part of Facebook. Are the people you enjoyed working with still at the company that was bought? Yes? Do they still make a kick-ass product? Yes?

Who cares about the parent company, then.

 

[kmax]

Originally Posted by Cliffy B

p.s. Notch, your cancelling Minecraft makes you look like a pouty kid who is taking his ball and going home. It’s a bratty and petty move and it saddens me greatly.

 

[Stet]

Not surprised he has so much cash. Seeing how much he blindly hates Facebook and finds it mysteriously creepy, it's probably all under his mattress.

 

[FiggyCal]

Still don't see the big deal about working with a part of Facebook. Are the people you enjoyed working with still at the company that was bought? Yes? Do they still make a kick-ass product? Yes?

Who cares about the parent company, then.

I know that from a business perspective it doesn't make a lot of sense, but from a personal, emotional perspective it definitely does. If Notch doesn't care for Facebook's policies (whether or not you think it's irrational); the decision to not support said policies by supporting the company is him being consistent with his morals. If he truly thought that Facebook is a "creepy" company and still supported it, he would have been a hypocrite.

But again, I think he's making the wrong choice and I certainly wouldn't have cancelled support.

 

[Codeblue]

Still don't see the big deal about working with a part of Facebook. Are the people you enjoyed working with still at the company that was bought? Yes? Do they still make a kick-ass product? Yes?

Who cares about the parent company, then.

You care because you're making them money, you're supporting their goals. If Notch doesn't agree with certain things Facebook is doing then he should put his money where his mouth is and lose out on the potential revenue for Minecraft VR to hold up what he believes in, otherwise he's a hypocrite.

 

[flyinpiranha]

It looks like that to people who reduced his thoughts to "He's just jealous" and are ignorant to what he actually said.

He doesn't care that Oculus sold out, he cares about having to work with Facebook.

I read Notch's post on the whole thing. He has Minecraft on iOS and the 360 ... or are Apple and Microsoft the "good" tech companies now? It's also coming to the Xbox One and I believe MS with the XB1 has shown more anti-consumer behavior than a free social site. But that's just me.

It's a ridiculous statement towards FB when he's working with a company that has shown anti-consumer behavior towards gamers causing backlash and reversal of intended policies. But, we can just pretend that it all didn't happen and he's really "sticking to his guns" with not developing for OR because the parent company he "thinks is creepy".

Protip, FB has had their fingers with Andreesson Horowitz VC money in OR LONG before this buyout even happened ... but then, I guess that didn't bother him the past few months.

I know that from a business perspective it doesn't make a lot of sense, but from a personal, emotional perspective it definitely does. If Notch doesn't care for Facebook's policies (whether or not you think it's irrational); the decision to not support said policies by supporting the company is him being consistent with his morals. If he truly thought that Facebook is a "creepy" company and still supported it, he would have been a hypocrite.

But again, I think he's making the wrong choice and I certainly wouldn't have cancelled support.

But, he IS a hypocrite, unless he's cancelling his XB1 and will no longer support the 360 version. Because he thinks "Facebook is creepy" but will 100% back a proven NSA information provider like Microsoft. Also see above with anti-consumer policies. I mean, it doesn't get more hypocritical than that.

 

[Boken]

I wouldn't go as far as calling Notch a hypocrite, but I'm pretty sure he can't really enunciate why exactly he hates facebook so much that he is unwilling to deal with it indirectly through oculus

 

[Codeblue]

I read Notch's post on the whole thing. He has Minecraft on iOS and the 360 ... or are Apple and Microsoft the "good" tech companies now? It's also coming to the Xbox One and I believe MS with the XB1 has shown more anti-consumer behavior than a free social site. But that's just me.

It's a ridiculous statement towards FB when he's working with a company that has shown anti-consumer behavior towards gamers causing backlash and reversal of intended policies. But, we can just pretend that it all didn't happen and he's really "sticking to his guns" with not developing for OR because the parent company he "thinks is creepy".

Protip, FB has had their fingers with Andreesson Horowitz VC money in OR LONG before this buyout even happened ... but then, I guess that didn't bother him the past few months.



But, he IS a hypocrite, unless he's cancelling his XB1 and will no longer support the 360 version. Because he thinks "Facebook is creepy" but will 100% back a proven NSA information provider like Microsoft. Also see above with anti-consumer policies. I mean, it doesn't get more hypocritical than that.

He clarified that he said he found Facebook "creepy" because they've been unstable with regards to gaming. He never mentioned privacy or anti-consumerism.

In any case he has an ideology that we aren't privy to, so if he's following what he believes in, then good for him.

 

[flyinpiranha]

He clarified that he said he found Facebook "creepy" because they've been unstable with regards to gaming. He never mentioned privacy or anti-consumerism.

In any case he has an ideology that we aren't privy to, so if he's following what he believes in, then good for him.

Yeah, sounds like a pouty kid to me. This is for Oculus Rift, not Facebook.

 

[FiggyCal]

I read Notch's post on the whole thing. He has Minecraft on iOS and the 360 ... or are Apple and Microsoft the "good" tech companies now? It's also coming to the Xbox One and I believe MS with the XB1 has shown more anti-consumer behavior than a free social site. But that's just me.

It's a ridiculous statement towards FB when he's working with a company that has shown anti-consumer behavior towards gamers causing backlash and reversal of intended policies. But, we can just pretend that it all didn't happen and he's really "sticking to his guns" with not developing for OR because the parent company he "thinks is creepy".

Protip, FB has had their fingers with Andreesson Horowitz VC money in OR LONG before this buyout even happened ... but then, I guess that didn't bother him the past few months.



But, he IS a hypocrite, unless he's cancelling his XB1 and will no longer support the 360 version. Because he thinks "Facebook is creepy" but will 100% back a proven NSA information provider like Microsoft. Also see above with anti-consumer policies. I mean, it doesn't get more hypocritical than that.

I think it was just an irrational knee jerk reaction. I was just trying to give him the benefit of the doubt.

 

[EVIL]

Evil, by the time any of the technologies you're talking about became publicly traded they were already successful technologies. More telling also that they all built themselves into successful companies, rather than being bought out. VR is not yet successful. It's not even a public product. This is a gamble, hoping for a long game that may or may not come.

Except its not only facebook and oculus that thinks VR is coming, its also Sony, microsoft, Valve, and allot of other developers who are working with those companies.

But you are right, this whole VR movement is risky. There are still allot of problems that need to be solved before mass market appeal is within reach, but these are not problems that are fundamentally unsolvable. It just takes the right group of people and the right supporters to fix these problems and Large companies like Facebook, Sony, Microsoft and Valve are on board to support this movement, either financially or on a technological level (hardware development, software development, and general VR oriented research)

 

[Triple U]

So the opinion I'm gathering from most of the finacial community that is speaking is that Facebook way overpayed for Oculus.

Their stock is also slightly buckling on the news. Down over 5% and still sinking. In somewhat funny ironic news, OR's payout is now 80m less presumably on the news of their aquisition.

 

[shinra-bansho]

So the opinion I'm gathering from most of the finacial community that is speaking is that Facebook way overpayed for Oculus.

Their stock is also slightly buckling on the news. Down over 5% and still sinking. In somewhat funny ironic news, OR's payout is now 80m less presumably on the news of their aquisition.

23.1M shares at current trading is actually $350M less than the $1.6B reported.

(It's also technically wiped $1.2B in value off of the WhatsApp deal)

 

[Harlock]

Probably has been posted, but LOL anyway:

http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/1wf6mg/so_no_way_to_confirm_this_but_my_friend_works_in/

submitted 1 month ago* by threewolfmtn
So no way to confirm this, but my friend works in the same building as Oculus, and he ran into Mark Zuckerberg taking the elevator to Oculus' floor.

 

[Jarmel]

Probably has been posted, but LOL anyway:

http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/1wf6mg/so_no_way_to_confirm_this_but_my_friend_works_in/

Not a surprise or revelation. I'm sure he's going in and out a lot this week.

 

[Cyrano]

Except its not only facebook and oculus that thinks VR is coming, its also Sony, microsoft, Valve, and allot of other developers who are working with those companies.

But you are right, this whole VR movement is risky. There are still allot of problems that need to be solved before mass market appeal is within reach, but these are not problems that are fundamentally unsolvable. It just takes the right group of people and the right supporters to fix these problems and Large companies like Facebook, Sony, Microsoft and Valve are on board to support this movement, either financially or on a technological level (hardware development, software development, and general VR oriented research)

And I suppose we'll see where that goes. You are right though, these problems aren't unsolvable. I tend to simply be cautious when people tell me things that sound too good to be true.

 

[Doc Holliday]

Not a surprise or revelation. I'm sure he's going in and out a lot this week.

This was posted a month ago

 

[Triple U]

23.1M shares at current trading is actually $350M less than the $1.6B reported.

(It's also technically wiped $1.2B in value off of the WhatsApp deal)

Oh yikes. At both my math and those numbers. No way I take over 75% of my payment in Facebook equity.

These really are kids playing with billions.