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[UrbanRats]

The route that oculus was going wouldn't have made them a 10 billion dollar business anytime soon anyway. it would be a niche of high end PC gaming at least till mid teir PC hardware caught up. It would take lots of time.

I really don't like when someone says that no human needs X amount of dollars. No human needs a car a house or all sorts of things. Most the things I own I don't need as a human. Sorry to rant just a phrase that bugs me.

Wealth is affected by diminishing returns, so the concept isn't inherently wrong.

Going from having no car to having one car makes a huge difference in your life style.
Going from 1 car to 2 makes somewhat of a difference (if you have a family for example)
Going from 2 cars to 20 cars makes less and less of a difference, and taps into another area of influence (in this case, personal satisfaction, assuming you're collecting them).

Also why richer people should be taxed more, proportionally, than poorer ones.

 

[Stet]

It.. really, really isn't. EA already has a vested interest in videogames. Facebook does not.

This is the VR equivalence of Facebook buying Nintendo. Or another large company with no existing gaming presence, buying Nintendo.

Or a large company that owns a gaming company having a division that sells life insurance. Oh wait.

 

[mugurumakensei]

Can someone please give an example of social VR? I guess I'm just not very creative.

Think experiencing being courtside at a basketball game virtually with friends or watching tv with a group of friends virtually etc. Basically, enjoy everything together virtually.

 

[fred]

What?

I'm gonna read that Press release because I can't understand why Facebook would be interested in VR tech

They're interested in VR tech because it's going to be worth a shitload of money in the not too distant future. Training for surgeons, pilots, the armed forces, astronauts, divers...the list goes on and on.

And then you've got entertainment - porn, video games, films, sporting events.

Oculus could have gone for twice that or even more, $2bn is a cheap investment when you look at how it's going to be a licence to print money given those applications I've listed above. It's use in porn alone is going to be worth a ridiculous amount of money. It's what made VHS a success over the far superior Betamax format.

 

[Wildstar75]

Can someone please give an example of social VR? I guess I'm just not very creative.

Watch Caprica.

 

[mjontrix]

Oh god prepare for all the integrated ads. Wouldn't be surprised if it's part of the API or something

The dream is DEAD!

SONY YOU MUST SAVE US ALL! Just allow your VR to work on PCs - that's all we ask!

 

[KHarvey16]

Listen to Mark in his own words and tell me that developers won't have to bend to the rules set by Facebook to bring their software to the Oculus. In the short term can only hope it's released as a stand alone product with a driver only with no software suite.

Can you summarize the rules set forth that developers would have to deal with?

 

[atr0cious]

What do you mean by forced them to go back to hand drawn?

When Pixar was being bought, Disney was putting out garbage cgi movies, Meet the Robinsons withstanding, and had said they were done with 2d traditional. Lasseter made them stop and that's where Princess and the Frog came from. Now they do computer animated.

 

[Yoda]

I don't like Facebook, but I don't really understand why this is bad. The only thing immediately apparent to me is that OR is going to have better funding.

Core-gaming will placed on the back-burner?

 

[Betta Lines]

Can someone please give an example of social VR? I guess I'm just not very creative.

Being at a football game (feels like you're in the stadium) with your friends, even though you're all in different countries.

 

[Des0lar]

I FUCKING KNEW IT!

Months back, I was saying that whoever makes the first VR "Facebook", basically a "Home" version for the PC, where you meet with friends etc, will be rich as fuck.
I never thought Facebook itself would be the one to step on that train first though.... Makes sense though, since that will keep Facebook super relevant throughout the years to come.

Great deal for Oculus, there is no doubt anymore what device will rule the up and coming future.

 

[Boogdud]

Amazon making console. Facebook buying Oculus. Goodbye gaming, prepared to be milked to eternity.

It makes me very sad to think this, but it's really looking like things are lining up for a crash again at worst, and gaming no longer being about games to the point of driving enthusiasts out of the hobby at best.

 

[wwm0nkey]

Can someone please give an example of social VR? I guess I'm just not very creative.

Riftmax theater. Its an online VR theater where you can watch movies on your HDD with friends and other people. Plenty of videos on it.

 

[Freeman]

It.. really, really isn't. EA already has a vested interest in videogames. Facebook does not.

This is the VR equivalence of Facebook buying Nintendo. Or another large company with no existing gaming presence, buying Nintendo.

Oculus wasn't a gaming company.

 

[Warewolf]

So John Carmack is now a Facebook employee?

THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE.

Oh God. . .

I knew it in my mind but seeing it written down just, just, everything about that is so wrong.

Whatever I'm done thinking about this until the smoke clears and we get a good sense of how things are headed. Fingers crossed.

 

[Legato.Reborn-]

If you had told me John Carmack would be a Facebook employee 2 years ago I'd look at you like a crazy person.

 

[abuC]

I feel bad for the people that actually gave money to help kickstart this.

 

[Tuxmascot]

Can someone please give an example of social VR? I guess I'm just not very creative.

Facebook gets the rights to stream the superbowl (unlikely) and they stream it into this app that plays on the goggles. You and your friends get to sit next to each other as you "watch from the sidelines".

It's some stupid shit that no one will every pay over $100 for to participate in.

Thanks for ruining this wonderful device, Facebook. I hope your stock plummets over 9000 points and you are forced to sell to Google.

 

[D4Danger]

If you had told me John Carmack would be a Facebook employee 2 years ago I'd look at you like a crazy person.

he'll be trying to monetize teens with his tile-matching iOS games for by the end of the year

 

[Freeman]

Can someone please give an example of social VR? I guess I'm just not very creative.

Getting together with everyone you had forgotten existed in a virtual room.

 

[Betta Lines]

I feel bad for the people that actually gave money to help kickstart this.

I feel bad for people who don't understand kickstarter.

 

[Buggy Loop]

Oh, oculus just made 3 years worth of Sony net income in one day. Not to piss on morpheus or anything but do you guys realize how amazing the customer version of OR will be? It changes many many things technology wise. Palmer is already excited to eventually tell us what it'll be.

 

[Stet]

I feel bad for the people that actually gave money to help kickstart this.

lol yeah if i had known the people i was giving free money to would actually end up SUCCESSFUL i never would have done it

 

[breakfuss]

sweet baby jesus 70 pages lolol! it was at like 8 last I posted.

 

[BeerSnob]

I haven't listened to it all, but I've seen the key points which you are probably referring to, and I don't see how it is going against what Palmer is saying. Facebook's ideas outside of gaming in VR is in addition to gaming.

If they force the device to operate within a "walled garden" as it were, they can control access much like apple has done via the app store and track and sell meta and PII data of users as well as infesting every aspect of the device with verbal and visual ads. Despite what optimists are saying, there is no feasible reason to not tie the drivers into such a "marketplace". It's no accident he launched directly from, "We are getting rich off mobile ads", into his reasoning in acquiring OR. It was in effect, "we have fully exploited this, and now we plan to fully exploit that". Flavored with buzzwords and suitspeak of course.

 

[NathanMcMahon]

Facebook gets the rights to stream the superbowl (unlikely) and they stream it into this app that plays on the goggles. You and your friends get to sit next to each other as you "watch from the sidelines".

It's some stupid shit that no one will every pay over $100 for to participate in.

Thanks for ruining this wonderful device, Facebook. I hope your stock plumments over 9000 points and you are forced to sell to Google.

priceless. this thread keeps on giving.

 

[corn_fest]

Listen to Mark in his own words and tell me that developers won't have to bend to the rules set by Facebook to bring their software to the Oculus. In the short term can only hope it's released as a stand alone product with a driver only with no software suite.

I'll start worrying when Oculus announces that new models will only work with applications from a walled-garden Oculus App Store and can no longer simply be attached as a display.
It's not going to happen, so I don't think I have anything to worry about.

 

[KMS]

Can you summarize the rules set forth that developers would have to deal with?

It's still waaaaaay to early to tell just that they want to make a peripheral(Oculus) into a platform basically they talk like while at home you'll use the Oculus instead of your phone.

edit - So put on your VR glasses and do all computer, tv, phone through it which is awesome and the future. I just don't want to do it through Facebook.

 

[bbalde]

By getting bought from a software company, who hasn't any kind of experience in mass production?

$

 

[TAJ]

When Pixar was being bought, Disney was putting out garbage cgi movies, Meet the Robinsons withstanding, and had said they were done with 2d traditional. Lasseter made them stop and that's where Princess and the Frog came from. Now they do computer animated.

I was with you until the last sentence. Tangled , Wreck-It Ralph and Frozen are CGI, though.

 

[NullPointer]

Can someone please give an example of social VR? I guess I'm just not very creative.

To guess: Seems like you'd be interacting with somebody else's avatar with your own in a shared virtual space, or, one party would use VR to see through a remote camera in some other non-VR'd person physical space. Neither of those two seem very social, outside of the MMO sense of social. You've still got a piece of tech covering your eyes and face.

If that's supposed to be social, our current world of everybody staring at their phones with earbuds will end up looking like some Golden Age of inclusivity and grace.

Playstation Home in VR.

So, basically nightmare fuel. I'm pretty sure this is why Atlantis sank.

 

[Rafterman]

I'm outraged that Oculus now has a massive financial backing that enables them to do more extensive R&D and production.
Clearly, the product will be ruined by having Facebook ads shoved in your face as you play games, or something equally unlikely!

What are you talking about? Gamers provided the R&D money for this device through Kickstarter. Where was this massive financial support from this corporation when they actually needed it? The whole thing is skeevy as fuck to me, building a company on the backs of gamers generosity and then selling it off and making a killing. But yeah, let's pretend that Oculus needed to be bought and that Facebook saved this company from anything. Oculus was fine and would have done just fine without them, even Facebook knew that or it wouldn't have payed 2 fucking billion dollars for the company. And the fact that it's Facebook makes it that much worse. Is there a bigger blight on the internet? I don't care what they do with the Oculus at this point, I don't support Facebook and that's not going to change because of this purchase.

 

[KHarvey16]

It's still waaaaaay to early to tell just that they want to make a peripheral(Oculus) into a platform basically they talk like while at home you'll use the Oculus instead of your phone.

So summarize the rules. That was your word.

 

[meanspartan]

Carmack is going to be my barometer of sorts.

If he stays, it means for now at least Facebook is not interfering. If he goes, Oculus is good as dead.

 

[pulga]

pack it up, Sony. you just got Zuckerpunched

Spoiler

sorry im not sorry

 

[Durante]

I'll start worrying when Oculus announces that new models will only work with applications from a walled-garden Oculus App Store and can no longer simply be attached as a display.
It's not going to happen, so I don't think I have anything to worry about.

I wouldn't be so sure that it's never going to happen, but it's certainly not going to happen with CV1.

And when/if it happens we'll hopefully have enough competitors to chose from.

 

[Freeman]

I was with you until the last sentence. Tangled , Wreck-It Ralph and Frozen are CGI, though.

That doesn't contradict what he said.

 

[Mushroomer25]

You need to think deeper.

Oculus Rift apps will probably be run through Facebook the same way Zynga games are run through Facebook.

The same way you would sign into Steam or Origin, now you will need a facebook account to use OR apps.

It could also change the entire type of software being developed for the OR. What once was an open development platform could very easily turn into a toy that Facebook will use to give some mild rejuvenation to it's business model by emphasizing social experiences.

Gamers were looking forward to this tech changing the game in the videogame industry at least in first person games and interactive story experiences. Now, that could change completely for the OR.

VR tours and VR farmville instead of VR Battlefield because EA doesn't want to share the goods with Facebook. Get it?

Except that isn't how Facebook has operated with any of their previous acquisitions (Instagram, WhatsApp). They've acquired companies with forward momentum, given them the capital to accelerate development, and reap a profit off success that would have occurred naturally.

Had EA, Microsoft, or even Valve bought Oculus - I'd be inclined to agree with you. They'd lock new tech behind their existing gaming environment. Facebook doesn't have an existing gaming presence (at least not one that matters in this conversation), so it's likely that we'll just see them let Oculus do their thing, and let the train keep rolling in.

 

[BigEvilTurtle]

So which will be better tech wise? OR or Morpheus?

 

[Sectorseven]

Being at a football game (feels like you're in the stadium) with your friends, even though you're all in different countries.

I don't know, I guess I just don't get it. How do you see your facebook friends, is there a camera pointed at them? How do I communicate with them, a headset? How do I multitask with all that stuff on my head?

It feels like I'd have to really dedicate myself to it.

 

[Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew]

Remember when John Carmack called Facebook to be offering "Walmart experience of gaming"?


http://blog.games.com/2011/06/09/john-carmack-facebook-games-are-the-walmart-experience-of-gami/

Good times... Now you get to be the employee of that Walmart.

 

[rjcc]

What are you talking about? Gamers provided the R&D money for this device through Kickstarter. Where was this massive financial support from this corporation when they actually needed it? The whole thing is skeevy as fuck to me, building a company on the backs of gamers generosity and then selling it off and making a killing. But yeah, let's pretend that Oculus needed to be bought and that Facebook saved this company from anything. Oculus was fine and would have done just fine without them, even Facebook knew that or it wouldn't have payed 2 fucking billion dollars for the company. And the fact that it's Facebook makes it that much worse. Is there a bigger blight on the internet? I don't care what they do with the Oculus at this point, I don't support Facebook and that's not going to change because of this purchase.

Was there a line in the kickstarter where it said "we're totally not going to sell this company to anyone ever, definitely not for $2 billion"

cuz I kinda assumed they were in business to make money.

 

[Trojita]

Glad I only ever kickstarted Project Eternity.

 

[-MD-]

So which will be better tech wise? OR or Morpheus?

Morpheus is attached to already outdated hardware so...

 

[takoyaki]

Fuck! Thanks for NOT letting me know about that before I paid for the DevKit2 in full and after I kickstarted the first DevKit1. Great job oculus :-(

 

[Madrugador]

Damn, I was ready to buy the retail version on day zero. Not happening anymore.

I'm pretty sure this will be the worst gaming news of the year for me.

 

[DoubleTake]

And at the last moment in swoops Sony riding atop the god of dreams to bestow upon us hope, all the while purging fellow passengers to stay airborne.

 

[Durante]

To guess: Seems like you'd be interacting with somebody else's avatar with your own in a shared virtual space, or, one party would use VR to see through a remote camera in some other non-VR'd person physical space. Neither of those two seem very social, outside of the MMO sense of social. You've still got a piece of tech covering your eyes and face.

If that's supposed to be social, our current world of everybody staring at their phones with earbuds will end up looking like some Golden Age of inclusivity and grace.

I really don't see how sharing a virtual space with multiple people and interacting with them is less social than sharing meatspace with a group of people while looking at your phone and interacting with a completely different set of people.

 

[TAJ]

That doesn't contradict what he said.

It did, but he ninja edited just before I quoted him.

 

[Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew]

Morpheus is attached to already outdated hardware so...

Facebook is more outdated. Your point besides trolling?