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Facebook has acquired Oculus VR for 2 Billion US Dollars

T

Trojan

Member
Nzyme32 said:
Palmer Luckey via the r/oculus subreddit

I’ve always loved games. They’re windows into worlds that let us travel somewhere fantastic. My foray into virtual reality was driven by a desire to enhance my gaming experience; to make my rig more than just a window to these worlds, to actually let me step inside them. As time went on, I realized that VR technology wasn’t just possible, it was almost ready to move into the mainstream. All it needed was the right push.
We started Oculus VR with the vision of making virtual reality affordable and accessible, to allow everyone to experience the impossible. With the help of an incredible community, we’ve received orders for over 75,000 development kits from game developers, content creators, and artists around the world. When Facebook first approached us about partnering, I was skeptical. As I learned more about the company and its vision and spoke with Mark, the partnership not only made sense, but became the clear and obvious path to delivering virtual reality to everyone. Facebook was founded with the vision of making the world a more connected place. Virtual reality is a medium that allows us to share experiences with others in ways that were never before possible.
Facebook is run in an open way that’s aligned with Oculus’ culture. Over the last decade, Mark and Facebook have been champions of open software and hardware, pushing the envelope of innovation for the entire tech industry. As Facebook has grown, they’ve continued to invest in efforts like with the Open Compute Project, their initiative that aims to drive innovation and reduce the cost of computing infrastructure across the industry. This is a team that’s used to making bold bets on the future.
In the end, I kept coming back to a question we always ask ourselves every day at Oculus: what’s best for the future of virtual reality? Partnering with Mark and the Facebook team is a unique and powerful opportunity. The partnership accelerates our vision, allows us to execute on some of our most creative ideas and take risks that were otherwise impossible. Most importantly, it means a better Oculus Rift with fewer compromises even faster than we anticipated.
Very little changes day-to-day at Oculus, although we’ll have substantially more resources to build the right team. If you want to come work on these hard problems in computer vision, graphics, input, and audio, please apply!
This is a special moment for the gaming industry — Oculus’ somewhat unpredictable future just became crystal clear: virtual reality is coming, and it’s going to change the way we play games forever.
I’m obsessed with VR. I spend every day pushing further, and every night dreaming of where we are going. Even in my wildest dreams, I never imagined we’d come so far so fast.
I’m proud to be a member of this community — thank you all for carrying virtual reality and gaming forward and trusting in us to deliver. We won’t let you down.
Click to expand...

Good to hear Palmer's take. I am really hoping FB leaves Palmer, Carmack, and company up to the hardware design as much as possible. If they are allowed leway to design the device they envision now that will take advantage of the bleeding edge, then it may not compromise the gaming segment. If they push them too soon to release a product and compromise that design, it could really derail the gaming potential of the Rift.
 
A

Agent Gibbs

Member
Help us Sony-wan-kanobi your (now) our only hope!


seriously you know Facebook are gonna screw the pooch on this, their new main goal will be to have some sort of Facebook integration/overlay over everything you use the damn thing for! playing a game and BOOM farmville request pop up, status updates can be poped up like xbox live achievements...auto posting to facebook

maybe were all too cynical, facebook has done some good stuff hasn't it?






yeah all hope is lost
 
Hurt and Scared

Hurt and Scared

Member
mtlnSd4.gif
 
M

megalowho

Member
-SD- said:
Why the negativity and pessimism?

You guys are pathetic. Same attitude going on on Reddit, now.
Click to expand...
Going from personal experience, a promising startup getting snapped up by an aggressive corporation early in its lifetime is usually very beneficial financially for the founders and a pretty big detriment to the original vision of the product or service.

Facebook is an advertising company, specifically they're in the business of selling targeted user data to their advertising partners. How that business model distorts the vision for Oculus VR gaming that had so many excited is the reason for the knee jerk negativity.
 
M

mr2xxx

Banned
SummitAve said:
They now have more money to put towards their ideas than they could have ever had by themselves. I see the potential, but who knows how it will work out. Congrats to the hardworking folks at Oculus though, it's much deserved.
Click to expand...

It's not their ideas anymore.
 
G

Grief.exe

Member
Timeaisis said:
This is only going to strengthen Sony's Morpheus, IMO. Kind of sucks for all those PC gamers getting ready for Oculus tech. We'll see how this all pans out. Hopefully they'll just let it lie and not have too much of an agenda.

What am I saying? It's facebook, of course they have some agenda. F2P VR games incoming
Click to expand...

Removing competition is always best for innovation...said no one ever.
 
M

Maulik

Member
I don't think anyone is upset that they sold out but rather what is Facebook's commitment to gaming? Remember, it was gamers that kick started oculus into what it is and Facebook doesn't exactly have a great background in gaming or any inclination that they view this for its gaming potential.
 
N

NathanMcMahon

Banned
jaxapollo said:
Exactly this.

People, vote with your wallets. Sure you're mad now.. But when this shit comes out don't fucking buy it. Seriously. Morpheus looks to do the EXACT same shit as Oculus anyway. Just wait it out, it probably won't be a long wait (if any wait at all)

If you're mad about this acquisition, DON'T SUPPORT IT.
Click to expand...

this won't work without a stupid hashtag.
 
M

Mooreberg

Member
I guess I was never hyped up enough about this to be particularly offended, but I get why people would want MS buying them instead of Facebook. This probably has more to do with chasing Google Glass than pursuing anything that the kick starter intended.
 
J

jon bones

hot hot hanuman-on-man action
jesus, what's with the negative reaction? clever positioning by Facebook, great funding for OR... i'm not really sure what the downside to this is.

do they think Facebook will come in and put ads in their VR copy of Shenmue 3?
 
G

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
Grief.exe said:
Can we trust him though?
Click to expand...

I think his intentions might be good, although I wonder what kind of contract he has signed - and hope he's not ticking down the days on it.

That aside though, it's not about his intentions and commitment any more. It's Zuckerberg's. Which is sort of the worry.
 
M

mavs

Member
Coreda said:
Interesting way to see it, but Facebook has so little geek cred it's clearly eliciting a completely negative reaction wave from most of their audience.

Had it been someone like Valve, where it's obvious the focus would stay on building a long-lasting product the reaction would have been the reverse I'm sure.

Although VR has a future beyond gaming it's hard not to imagine FB not taking it as seriously as other more focused companies might have.
Click to expand...

Taking *what* as seriously? Gaming, or the future beyond gaming? Either way, they just spent 2B on a kickstarter project with no demonstrated purpose beyond gaming...I'm sure they take the future seriously, but $2 billion seriously?
 
J

jacksepticeye

Member
Oculus being bought out was inevitably going to happen once it got enough attention but from Facebook?? That's the real shocker

Hopefully this gives them the money and resources to make a REALLY solid product and then devs can take over the use of it for games
 
Jinfash

Jinfash

needs 2 extra inches
What a week its been for gaming. I feel vendicated more than ever for waiting it out this gen— can't wait to see where things are headed, for better or worse.
 
T

The_Monk

Member
I've been so tired lately but today I finally got some free time so I checked my Backlog, played one hour of Super Sanctum TD after playing Ground Zeroes but there's always new news on GAF so now I can't leave.

You know what my good fellow GAFfers, I'm getting some motivational Ice-cream!
 
A

Arcticfox

Member
The Rift better remain as a generic display device. I don't even want to imagine it turning into a closed platform where only Facebook programs run on it.
 
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