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Facebook has acquired Oculus VR for 2 Billion US Dollars

jaaz said:
What? FB is entirely optional on PS4 and Vita. Do you think you'll be able to use the Rift, now owned by FB, without a FB account? Hahahahaha
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You think a facebook account will be requisite for hardware? The OR connects to a PC like a monitor without any drivers required, why would they add a Facebook login to use a monitor?
 
Kurdel said:
You realize Sony will to bring VR Facebook to their platform, just like they brought it to Vita and PS4?

People should hope for openness and collaboration, not sink into stupid hardware tribalism AGAIN.
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Gaming side hasn't been anything but hardware tribalism since Feb 20th last year. Even after both Sony and Oculus have acknowledged the benefit of mutual growth from putting eyes on VR, people are desperate to try and don a flag. It's pathetic, and I thought statements in the past week about both being happy they have competitors pushing the medium would stop that.
 
Faith said:
This is an internal post for the whole team, not PR.
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In public relations, you have multiple publics you engage with -- that includes your own employees. You need to reassure them so they continue their work at the same level and that you retain them. So, internal communications are PR.

Public relations for Fortune 500 companies was my old job, I hated every minute of it. Make a lot less money now, but I'm a lot happier.
 
J-Rzez said:
Oh no. This literally ruined my day. As someone who's been in love with the VR idea, FOR GAMING, Rift is now dead in said regard. I have legitimate reasons to doubt this is for the best, just like others here. It'll help Rift in non-entertainment sectors, but for gaming especially its dead.

Well hopefully this news will push Sony to make Morpheous available for use on PC. They can really capitalize on this news. Its funny though how for many Sony is back as the white knight for gaming. Who knows what valve is doing with their VR.

Some of the dev/pub reactions have been interesting, can't wait to see more.

Your move Sony.
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They specifically state they have zero intention in changing how the Rift will pursue gaming applications. Why is this a death knell?
 
Orayn said:
Still interested to hear what the doom and gloom people think Facebook is actually going to do. Cancel all the games that Oculus isn't actually developing themselves? Tell everyone making a game for Oculus that they have to stop, because the headset isn't for that purpose any more? Mandate obtrusive ads in all Oculus VR software?

Again, Oculus is in the business of hardware and software solutions to make VR possible. The requirements are fairly similar for a variety of applications, so what does Facebook's involvement change about that?
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There will certainly be a focus shift. Facebook isn't interested in buying a VR for gaming at all. Facebook isn't interested in getting into gaming. If they were they would've bought Zynga years and years ago. In fact of the 46 acquisitions Facebook has made exactly 0 of those are about gaming. Therefore, you're faced with two possibilities. 1) Zuckerberg suddenly wants to get into gaming and instead of buying a studio has bought a VR maker? or more likely 2) Zuckerberg wants to use VR for social networking purposes. I tend be believe #2 because he has said as much.
Mark Zuckerberg said:
After games, we're going to make Oculus a platform for many other experiences. Imagine enjoying a court side seat at a game, studying in a classroom of students and teachers all over the world or consulting with a doctor face-to-face -- just by putting on goggles in your home."
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Essentially, "Yeah OK, you guys can do this gaming stuff on the side, but there's a bunch of other stuff we have for you to do."
Overall it's good news for VR, but bad news for gamers that wanted Oculus to be a gaming endeavor. It's not anymore. They'll have to get it from Sony (or Valve if rumors are to be believed---lol) if they want a 100% gaming dedicated VR set.
 
DieH@rd said:
They clearly stated that are not making one. They only have small R&D division and are willing to share their results to anyone who wants to build VR systems. They are fully committed to integrate Oculus Rift support directly into Steam via new VR SDK.
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If this doesn't change I won't go into panic mode.

ronito said:
There will certainly be a focus shift. Facebook isn't interested in buying a VR for gaming at all. Facebook isn't interested in getting into gaming. If they were they would've bought Zynga years and years ago. In fact of the 46 acquisitions Facebook has made exactly 0 of those are about gaming. Therefore, you're faced with two possibilities. 1) Zuckerberg suddenly wants to get into gaming and instead of buying a studio has bought a VR maker? or more likely 2) Zuckerberg wants to use VR for social networking purposes. I tend be believe #2 because he has said as much.

Overall it's good news for VR, but bad news for gamers that wanted Oculus to be a gaming endeavor. It's not anymore. They'll have to get it from Sony (or Valve if rumors are to be believed---lol) if they want a 100% gaming dedicated VR set.
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Who said it was ever going to be this? Why would it be? It should always have been a tool that could be utilized by developers to do what they want with it. Why pigeonhold it to gaming?
 
mattiewheels said:
The way people here talk, the Rift just became some proprietary device that can only play what Lord Zuckerberg deems appropriate. Why don't you wait for solid proof before making ridiculous generalizations?
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Because we know that they are only in it to sell and control any and all personal information that they can get hold of.
 
enzo_gt said:
For increased security? Like, the most important part of a payment system? With Facebook's backing you better believe payment security down the line for the consumer version is not going to have any hold ups should issues arise, with the fear of upsetting such a large organization.

You don't need it, but it doesn't inherently come with negatives. None that I can see ATM.
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Why would I pay Oculus at all, if the platform was going to remain open?

The only reason for a payment API is if there's a whitelisted App Store, iOS style.
 
Shosai said:
Alright then, list the minimum hardware requirements that you feel are needed for a "compelling VR experience". And then we can debate whether or not mid to low-end PCs will hit that point in 3 years.
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Lets say the same amount of power as PS4 which not that great to begin with .
If we talking about desktop PC that could be true but people are not buying desktop PC anymore there are buying laptops and tablets .
It going take years before they can push good VR .
 
SwiftDeath said:
Reducing the specs of the hardware to hit consumer wide accessibility pricing would limit the gaming applications for sure.
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The existing OR team has always been working to reduce the pricing for the hardware. They've developed two products, a piece of hardware and an API to develop things for that hardware. You make it sound like electronic components don't get cheaper over time

jaaz said:
All eternal optimists, please listen to this man. FB didn't spend 2 billion to let Palmer explote his dream. Oculus needs to start making money for FB shareholders, and that's not going to happen by selling $300+ VR hardware to the high end PC market that is like .00001% of the population. The Rift will need to evolve and be targeted at the FB market, and I don't think I need to tell you that that market is not rocking dual titans.

The naïveté in this thread is astounding.
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Holy shit, what kind of publicly-traded, international company would ever ever expect to turn any kind of profit by trying to sell $300 hardware platform to gamers? That would never happen
 
Wow, what a spectacular waste.

Oh wait, I'm supposed to be happy about this I guess? I guess this will be the future of Facebook... or its downfall. Either works for me, I'll never use Facebook regardless.

I wonder if this will have any effect on Sony's venture.
 
EVIL said:
I guess its sarcasm
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It's stupid if it's serious. It's stupid if it's sarcasm.

People bought a product via Kickstarter - the devkits. And they were delivered. If buying a company's product, which ultimately leads to its further success somehow makes one an "investor" then Apple owes my parents a few million dollars in return for the money they "invested" by purchasing an Apple II in 1980.
 
Septimius said:
People have this belief that "the higher ups" are silly people that just do whatever they want. They do, but they're rich because they understand where the value of a company comes from.
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The world is littered with the discarded corpses of once successful companies that were bought in big strategic moves by huge companies, before being mismanaged into irrelevance (or worse).
 
Mindwipe said:
Why would I pay Oculus at all, if the platform was going to remain open?

The only reason for a payment API is if there's a whitelisted App Store, iOS style.
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Because an open platform doesn't disclude the possibility of paid stores and hardware sales? You can have both.
 
According to sources close to the situation, Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg started his quest to buy Oculus VR, the maker of the nifty Rift virtual reality headset, several months ago, before wrapping up the deal this past weekend. It was signed this morning.

Facebook said today that it would pay $2 billion for the startup, forking over $400 million in cash, 23.1 million shares of Facebook common stock and a $300 million earn-out in cash and stock based on future performance.

Sources close to the situation said that Facebook’s initial offer to the Irvine, Calif.-based Oculus came about three months ago at about a $1.5 billion valuation. In fact, in early February, Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe left the DICE gaming conference in Las Vegas to do a personal demo of the device for Zuckerberg.

At the time, Oculus investors — including Andreessen Horowitz, Spark Capital and Matrix Partners — had not wanted the two-year-old company to sell, considering it to be at the forefront of a new platform for consumers.

For this, Oculus had attracted a lot of interest from the media and other tech giants. Google, famous for picking up esoteric device companies, had also apparently seriously sniffed around, although sources said Facebook was the main suitor here. Other obvious buyers — Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Sony, which has its own Project Morpheus in the arena — were not in the mix.
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http://recode.net/2014/03/25/in-goo...ths-ending-in-weekend-marathon-of-dealmaking/
 
Septimius said:
It's because they just want money that they'll let Oculus do what they want.
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Well then, the Oculus Team needs to cranked up their technology real quick. I don't believe if some company acquired others they would realy let them do what they want. What I hped is that Facebook will support it as an open device so anyone can developed it as they want.
 
I'm sure it's been posted, but Notch wrote a blog post explaining a bit more his tweet:

http://notch.net/2014/03/virtual-reality-is-going-to-change-the-world/

Facebook is not a company of grass-roots tech enthusiasts. Facebook is not a game tech company. Facebook has a history of caring about building user numbers, and nothing but building user numbers. People have made games for Facebook platforms before, and while it worked great for a while, they were stuck in a very unfortunate position when Facebook eventually changed the platform to better fit the social experience they were trying to build.

I definitely want to be a part of VR, but I will not work with Facebook. Their motives are too unclear and shifting, and they haven’t historically been a stable platform. There’s nothing about their history that makes me trust them, and that makes them seem creepy to me.
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Doesn't sound that salty to me. Sounds pretty reasonable (and this is coming from someone that thinks Notch can be a bit too much sometimes). I mean, he's right. The company has had a pretty poor history. So why should he work with them, if he's not comfortable doing so. And since Oculus has been bought out by them, it only makes sense to pull the deal. So why is that Salty or unreasonable?
 
ZehDon said:
Well, you've made a pretty large false equivalency to create that parity of expectation. WhatsApp and Instagram, by their nature, were cohesive to Facebook's functionality, purpose and design: sharing. WhatsApp's and Instagram's functionality worked within their limits to create a self-sustained sharing ecosystem all of their own. Bringing them into Facebook aided both sides of the equation: more people to share with, and new things to share. That's why they weren't required to change.

Occulus isn't about sharing, however. It doesn't neatly align to Facebook's design, purpose or functionality. Hell, I'd argue VR is actually the opposite: VR is about removing yourself from this world, to immerse yourself in another. That's what VR is, ultimately, going to provide: man made new worlds. Facebook's purchase is, clearly, to grab VR before it takes off, and possibly even take a shot at the VR meta-verse that science fiction has long talked about. The reason isn't altruistic in nature, evidenced by the nature of Facebook itself. The reason is, obviously, profit and gains.

Unfortunately, this means VR will be entirely advertiser controlled the moment it lands. Imagine worlds where everything you see and hear is controlled by advertisers. Similar to this one, strangely enough, except it will be one where you can't turn off the TV, look away from the billboard, or ignore the advertisements. It will be more Douglas Adams, minus the humour, and less ... whatever people actually wanted.

Frankly, I think this acquisition is horrible news for anyone hoping that VR was going to achieve its full potential.
futurama_s02e09_03.jpg
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If you didn't think this was going to happen regardless of who bought Oculus, you're more of an optimist than the people who are excited over the acquisition. The best part about the internet, is that you can create your own worlds, and never be apart of that. Second Life is proof of that. The Rift is still a hardware device, it is not the software by itself. Facebook if anything will make the Rift publicly palatable, rather than make it only for shut-ins, which seems to be what everyone against this seemingly wanted.
 
Haha this news. What the flying fuck. Biggest leftfield megaton in my 30 years of being a gamer.

I guess we all have to bow positionally tracked down for our VR overlord Zuckerberg.

The potential for having virtual sex with that hot Facebook chick is limitless.
 
Kurdel said:
You think a facebook account will be requisite for hardware? The OR connects to a PC like a monitor without any drivers required, why would they add a Facebook login to use a monitor?
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I am not a techie, but I suspect they will require a FB account to use software that works with the OR. That's how FB makes money. They will find a way to make sure you create and use a FB account to use the OR. Count on it.
 
gcubed said:
my fear is that zuck appears to be clueless to how VR works, trying to pitch sporting events as a possible use case.
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Huh, it's one of my most anticipated uses. Being able to watch a Hockey or Baseball game from a virtual seat will be great. VR is going to be about way more than just games.
 
Briarios said:
I don't need to, because they are. This isn't about tech or even type of company -- it's about corporate culture and how culture determines the direction of different departments. People that sell their companies go through a honeymoon phase where everything runs as it did, except you now have way more resources to leverage. Then, you start hiring people, and those people are hired through the HR of the main company, and the culture begins to skew. Officer level positions become available due to normal attrition -- this people are then replaced by up and comers from other parts of FB, and the culture erodes further. It doesn't take long before employees enamored with the old culture begin leaving for other opportunities, not likening the change -- and the transformation speeds up.

You see this in every single acquisition by public companies through all types of corporations -- this will happen. It's inevitable.
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Yup.

Septimius said:
People have this belief that "the higher ups" are silly people that just do whatever they want. They do, but they're rich because they understand where the value of a company comes from. Can you please serve me a vision wherein they can kill of what VR is to you, but still push it the way you seem to think they will? Then I can refute why that wouldn't happen. I would try to do it now, but I understand that just because a company acquires another, doesn't mean they think they can do it better. It means that company sees an upside in what the other company is doing, and they want to own that upside. Not fuck it over.

Honestly, this belief is so myopic, it's kind of tiresome. If Facebook wanted to make a VR headset, they'd spend 500$ million on R&D and make one themselves. They don't want that. They want Oculus, because Oculus is doing things right. Why anyone think some 'suits' would ruin that doesn't coincide with the whole "they just want money"-idea. It's because they just want money that they'll let Oculus do what they want.
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See above post. If you contest that, you really haven't been paying attention. It's not myopic at all.
 
It's all ogre. Quote me on this. The entire project is basically killed off. We will never get the Oculus Rift, at least not the one we always wanted. Hopefully Sony does a decent job with their virtual reality kit.
 
thunder_snail said:
Of course they will continue supporting Oculus. That's not the point. It's about supporting Oculus to drive the VR tech forward or milking it for money. What do you think the brass at Facebook was thinking when they decided to spend $2 billion on it?
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I imagine they were thinking about the future of VR beyond hardcore gaming, and that they wanted to get in on that early. They will let Oculus do their thing, which is to make a VR headset for PC games, and then continue to support where VR goes beyond games. Whether Facebook bought them or not, the Rift was going to be used in other areas beyond hardcore games. One of those other uses relates to social networking, which is where Facebook can help.

All in all, if the Rift sells really well, Facebook make lots of money. The Rift is only going to sell really well if it continues to be what it was supposed to be in the first place. I'm sure Facebook are aware of this.
 
gundamkyoukai said:
Lets say the same amount of power as PS4 which not that great to begin with .
If we talking about desktop PC that could be true but people are not buying desktop PC anymore there are buying laptops and tablets .
It going take years before they can push good VR .
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While desktop PC sales have declined roughly 10% over the past 18 months, that's a far cry from zero sales. John Carmack himself has talked about trying to compress the hardware rendering platform down to fit entirely in the headset.
 
Mindwipe said:
Their product is hardware. They sell it to retailers, not customers.

The only use for Facebook's payment system is if they are going to mandate their own anti-consumer payment solution that censors any corporately inconvenient users, same as the iOS App Store.
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They're currently selling DK2 directly to people on their website, and they're presumably using some sort of payment solution for that.
 
ronito said:
Overall it's good news for VR, but bad news for gamers that wanted Oculus to be a gaming endeavor. It's not anymore. They'll have to get it from Sony (or Valve if rumors are to be believed---lol) if they want a 100% gaming dedicated VR set.
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And that assumes that Sony isn't going to do anything with the tech either. They aren't going to release a vr headset *just* for gaming and out of the kindness of their hearts.

JJDinomite said:
It's all ogre. Quote me on this. The entire project is basically killed off. We will never get the Oculus Rift, at least not the one we always wanted. Hopefully Sony does a decent job with their virtual reality kit.
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Gladly. Want to bet on this too since you seem so confident that facebook will cancel their 2 billion dollar investment?

Lol.
 
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