Facebook buying up oculus rift:
Someone please tell me this is an early april fools joke…
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Apparently not.
Yup, saw this on reddit earlier, what is this going to mean for Oculus?
With all the help and backing they’ve been getting from industry experts, why in god’s name would they sell out to facebook of all companies?
Even forbes is running an article saying Microsoft should have bought them and not facebook and at this point, I feel rather inclined to agree.
In the long run, Zuckerberg won’t be able to restrain himself from making this tie back into facebook.
That the consumer version will come in a free, low-res version with built in pop-up ads?
Honestly, I figure that the worst likely scenario is the console approach: slightly cheaper hardware, but only approved software can be run, probably with some license fees to be paid (and passed on to the consumers). Oh yeah and they’ll probably be collecting data for targeted advertisements, but Google’s already doing that (and personally I don’t mind - I’ve got adblock).
Worst case scenario, at least any money put into either development or marketing will, indirectly, benefit future competition on the VR market (by creating such a market, first of all). I mean, it’s not like IT billionaires have a history of systematically destroying their competition or anything!
All Farmville all the time.
I have to agree this is quite discouraging. My guess is Facebook bought them as a way to be able to compete with Google and Microsoft’s R&D in augmented reality and games are probably a secondary concern at best.
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I don’t always use facebook, but when I do, it’s in ultra high definition augmented reality. Taking social networking to the next level.
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I could understand just about any other company buying them. Google for sure with all the robots companies they have acquired.
fudgebook… What a joke.
Indeed. Quite discouraging.
Best case scenario is that Facebook will just leave Oculus alone and allow them to act entirely independently; and with a lot more money on hand than they previously had. My hope is that Facebook just want to own the company that Oculus could become some time in the future and are buying them now whilst they are still (relatively) cheap.
I don’t think we’ll see any adverts embedded in the Rift, any need to sign in to facebook to use it or anything stupid like that. I think things will just carry on as before and we’ll hardly notice that Facebook own Oculus.
Quite a way in to the future when the consumer unit has been released (possibly with a dedicated console version) I can see that games will have Facebook as the default sharing option. But then it’s quite likely they would have done any way. Facebook are just making sure that they are in the game for the future.
There are a lot of things about facebook I don’t like (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9ZqXlHl65g) but I don’t think they will wreck the Oculus Rift. The worst thing about this is that Facebook seem to be entrenching themselves in our collective future. On the other hand it only takes a Sony, Google or Apple to make a better VR experience and Oculus could go the way of Betamax.
I have to be pessimistic, and say that the Oculus is doomed as a gaming device.
It could be a good thing, as in “they have so much money now that they can afford to ship the rift at the lowest consumer price as possible”, which would help a ton to democratize VR to the general public. A rift sold at $100 versus the $300-$400 current price range… ?
It could be a bad thing, because it’s facebook… who knows what evil scheme they have in mind… 
I’ll re-post this tweet I read on the subject:
“All I will say about this whole occulus rift acquisition is they should seriously consider re-branding it as Faceblock”
Still, it could have been worse. It could have been AOL.
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I was going to find that meme where the guy facepalms with a book but I can’t find it.
What, facebook?
I trust it was a really good deal from Oculus VR team’s perspective. Really don’t see how Facebook is going to regain on this investment though. Who cares, just sad that Oculus VR won’t become a company worth billions on its own, with the help of a couple wealthy investors. Does this deal mean Palmer Luckey becomes one of the youngest billionaires before even selling a consumer version of the RIft?
Me too. Ironically on Google Chrome.
Unlikely he’ll be a billionaire due to dilution from investment, stock given to employees, and taxes. However he’s probably worth at least a few hundred million now.
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I don’t always “Like” someone when using augmented reality, but when I do, I receive a restraining order. (Social Networking level 2)
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