Facebook Acquires Oculus VR for $2 billion dollars

Surprised no one has posted this yet…

Its official. The Oculus Rift is now owned by Facebook…

Coming up next, virtual vacations, live event attendance, and visiting of relatives, all without leaving the comfort of your couch.

Experts across the US are already saying that people these days are too reliant on technology for their social needs, which this being used as a social platform as well as games may compound. The use as a social platform may also have very well just upped the demands on what the thing needs to do in terms of response time, framerate, and resolution.

Ugh…well, that really sucks.

I don’t know about that, Sony might actually beat them to market and by the time the Oculus comes out, people will be playing their PS4 games in full 360 degree environmental immersion.

Microsoft too is rumored to be developing their own solution, which would really be interesting to see combined with Kinect 2.0.

Also to note, it was Palmer Luckey’s decision to go ahead with the deal after talking with Mark Zuckerberg, so it’s not like a hostile takeover or something of that sort. It also seems like Notch is (once again), trying to sell himself as a hero and the ultimate moral figure of the game industry by halting all Minecraft development for the rift (for the simple fact that Facebook creeps him out, I swear that there may be some who literally worship that guy).

Oculus should be happy with this, FaceBook will drive it mainstream.

Yeah its pretty sad, even when you are socialising with someone in real life at holiday time often they are still 100% plugged in to their phone and it takes a realtime priority over everything else.

And as of now, the only people in my area who will readily listen to the need to be less dependent on technology are those who attend various churches around town (because non-connected social interaction is a very important part of our faith).

For a sizable chunk of today’s youth though, the little time they spend unconnected to technology will only shrink as they would now be able to stay home and virtually attend events they used to leave the house for. I’m not opposed at all to having more immersion in game environments (I would love to try out VR that makes those experiences at Disney World seem like ancient technology), but I could also see this making game addiction problems worse and raise obesity rates even further (perhaps there should be infrequent reminders to take breaks now and then).

Also, not only for games, but for movies, imagine seeing an entire movie done using a VR-designed camera and having to watch it a few times because you missed stuff at other angles (like that Dragon bearing down behind you or that car to the right exploding), the Hollywood studios would love that idea. Also, watching The Hobbit in 3D on a virtual screen filing your entire field of vision, Smaug would’ve never looked so good.

By talk its usually “hey, want to be F***ing rich? Let me acquire you and you wont have to worry about money ever again…”

Which sadly is quite understandable depending on the individuals goals. VR wont go away from this, but the story…the narrative… of some kids kickstarter project which rose to success will already have ended as its now Facebook’s success.

I was thinking about that the other day, make some novel idea or application, convince Facebook to spend billions on its acquisition, have all the money you will ever need for life. (and donate 100 million to make Blender the 3D app. that rules them all).

There was another article that talked about Zuckerberg also really liking the gaming angle of the Rift and has talked about it continuing under independent development for games before he comes in to help it realize its full potential in many other markets.

The thing is, are newly minted billionaires like Zuckerberg not allowed to be tech. nuts and spend money to make the future happen? Are people automatically filed under the ‘evil’ category the moment they make X amount of money? The gaming community in general seems to have a strong ‘keep your hands off of this, it belongs to us and only us’ mentality with various technologies and products (much like their perceived right to pontificate on what a ‘true game’ is and who a ‘true gamer’ is).

I don’t see how the tech is worth $2 billion anyway.
It’s not even sold one product to consumer yet, its a completely new market to create and requires a completely new breed of games etc.
Of course other tech giants with hands already in media production are bound to come along and create a competitor product or standard that potentially takes off quicker like the Sony thing could do.
Also consider that many nerds and geeks like us will be turned off by any product from facebook, the appeal for these people being some independent startup thing was lost.

I think it wouldnt be as bad if 1) Facebook wasnt mired in some controversy and 2) He is involved with politics and has been funneling his money into pushing hottopics like amnesty and other issues. Naturally, once you go in that direction its hard to ever be seen as “just a tech nut”. Perception is everything these days.

nope nope nope nope nope

Ugh, my hopes for OculusVR went down the drain… It’s ironic that Sony are now the “good guys” by comparison, the same Sony that put rootkits in their products. Time to put my tinfoil hat on and say that facebook will want to use the position tracking camera for something nefarious.

If all of the sudden we see everyone putting on Tinfoil hats and crying out about grand schemes and conspiracies, then perhaps we should bring Bao2 back and make him the new owner and chief administrator of this site, because he was the king of those type of things.

An entire forum devoted to lizard people would follow shortly. :spin:

I hope FB will buy Blender! We need new features.
XD

What ever happened to bao? I miss him flying off the handle…

Looking around at the initial fallout, it seems that one of the biggest complaints is the idea that Facebook runs a business where ‘you are the product’.

It seems like people refuse to understand the bigger picture of why it seems that way. Facebook is offering a free service where you can connect with others, they still have to make money somehow and that’s where the add-supported stuff comes in. Now a good reason for targeted ads in this case is that it increases the chance a person clicks on them which means more revenue, which means they can offer a wider array of features that are free to use. Should Facebook instead offer a pay-for service that doesn’t have ads, they wouldn’t have near the number of people using their service as they do now (though perhaps a ‘pro’ tier without ads may not be a bad idea in the eyes of some).

Perhaps one outcome might be a subsidized Oculus Rift version that’s ad-supported and used for social purposes, but it might not be a bad idea as long as you have a chance to pay more for a version that’s designed for games and doesn’t have them.

Beautiful capitalism. Anybody supporting a tech venture who’s surprised when it’s sold to a large corporation doesn’t seem to understand a single thing about tech over the last 30 years.

I hate Facebook… Year by year, I see more of my friends more concetrated trying to “like” each other’s images in their mobiles than f***ing talk!!!
(maybe that was a bit off-topic, but anyway…)

What would you rather have, you working on your government provided PC to make games for the Government Rift (using Government 3D) while using Government OS?

Capitalism has both upsides and downsides, but it’s the reason why consumers have most of the tech. they have today, and the average Joe can also make a lot of money through the stock market system by buying stock and selling them just like the large investors.

Also, did you know that most of the newest Billionaires in the world today did not come from some wealthy dynasty of a family, simply put, they were people like you and me who had a great idea and had the means to make it into a product.

Its not really that simple in my opinion. Capitalism is great, only we havent had true capitalism in almost what 100 years now… In this case, the issue of being acquired isnt as bad as who they were acquired by. Facebook has already gotten their hands involved in politics and other controvsersal topics. So its not necessarily that they exist, but its what they have done which can cause some backlash.

As you point out though, a lot of tech startups are created in the hopes of getting bought out. I dont blame the makers for wanting a big payout as a result…