13 replies to this topic

[straussy240]

http://www.polygon.c...us-vr-2-billion

Facebook buys oculus

[Axe99]

Did a search and Oculus didn't have it's own thread!  Remedied now (no pun intended on Graph's mention of Alan Wake being on sale).

Interesting news - I'm not that much of a fan of Facebook's way of doing things, I can't but feel that this wasn't necessarily the best way for Oculus to go.  Still, will be interesting, and someone's done very nicely out of it - $2 billion buys you a lot of likes on Facebook!

Also - John Carmack now works for Facebook .  That said, Facebook probably would look better with megatextures .

[Mr_Eggy]

While reading a lot of comments on various articles - most of them being "sony can have my money now"/"cancelling preorder"/etc. - I did notice a few people trying to point out that Oculus needed a big deal like this in order to get anywhere as they needed way more funds to creating anything consumer-level.

It makes sense as I'm guessing most of the funding they had went to dev-kits/research and to start mass-producing gear would have been out of their price range. Facebook might not be ideal, but it was likely the only choice they had to stop Sony/MS getting ahead of them.

[Axe99]

Aye, but they're trapped in Facebook's web now.  Facebook has an image of the future, and Oculus' job is now to support that.  Sure, that'll involve games, but I doubt, highly, that it will be business-as-usual (sure, they'll all say it will be, and it'll take a while to change).

I can't believe there weren't venture capitalists out there with a decent amount of money who wouldn't have backed the Rift, yet allowed it to be its own thing and let them make them money on its own terms. Generally speaking, acquisitions like this tend to have issues.  The more disparate the businesses, the more likely the issues, and Oculus and Facebook are pretty disparate in terms of what they do and how they operate.

It might be fine, but Facebook as a company is pretty controlling and not terribly customer-focussed, and Oculus is still establishing itelf, so unlike other Facebook acquisitions, it's likely to have much more impact than re-badging and Facebook integration.  We'll see though, I definitely hope it turns out for the best but my gut feeling on this, be it from a general "business acquisition" perspective, or from a "Facebook" perspective, isn't positive.

[Mr_Eggy]

They actually got a fair bit in venture capital IIRC, but I doubt it was enough to actually become profitable. I'd actually be more worried if it was Google/Apple/etc. that was acquiring them, as they have hardware ecosystems that they would likely try to integrate the Oculus into.

Hell, if John Carmack agrees with the whole deal - I don't know what else to say...
(https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack)

[straussy240]

Yep eggy thats it. Facebook as a company on its own does not earn a lot of money at all, but they have lots of $$$$ so they are trying to become a big parent company/conglomerate.

Some people are thinking Facebook will change how the oculus will be developed, but there is no way to know that at all. Unless fb comes out with farmville games (i.e. the web browsed based game) with oculus support I wouldn't worry about it

[Mr_Eggy]

Exactly. It's frustrating to see people treating the Rift like a piece of software, i.e. all the comments about ads and whatnot.

[straussy240]

The only thing that FB might try in the future is to incorporate 3D multimedia. i.e. check out Axe99's 3D video where he goes skydiving

[Axe99]

I could dig going skydiving .  Anyways, don't get me wrong, I'm not all doom-and-gloom, but Facebook didn't spring $2 Bn for nothing.  They'll want something for it.  Given Facebook's core business, I find it hard to see what they want from Oculus not clashing with what people saw Oculus as envisioning.

Also, prior to the purchase, Oculus would have had a fair bit less money to make to justify its existence - now it's going to need to turn a tidy profit.  This could push it towards being based on a closed app ecosystem, as the apps are where the money is (that standard 30% cut on Steam/PSN/XBLA/Apple's App store). I can't see them making that kind of money back on an open system, and to be competitive with Morpheus, they're going to need to sell their headsets as cheap as they can (and if the apps aren't in a closed ecosystem, the only way they make money is off the headsets - if Sony make their money off the apps, Oculus could be at a significant price disadvantage).  This isn't necessarily a bad thing - Morpheus will almost definitely be in a closed ecosystem as well, but Sony have a lot of experience in this kind of thing, and have been one of the more developer-friendly ecosystems of late.

It could all work out fine, and Facebook may be the hero of VR in a few years time - I'm just throwing ideas around - but I've got far more alarm bells going off than I do enticing possibilities.

[spectre51]

Pre-orders are up US$599, estimated shipping date is now May (Was March at the start so must have had a fair few pre-orders already)

Includes: headset, sensor, Oculus Remote, cables, Xbox One Controller, EVE: Valkyrie, and Lucky's Tale
Expected Ship Date: May 2016. Limit 1 per Customer

[Axe99]

Cheers for the info Spec, looks like it'll make a splash early .

[spectre51]

And much like the PS3 US$599 launch price I'm seeing people say its costing over au$1000 for us to order it after conversion and shipping.

And you will have to add more if you want the touch controllers to be released later in the year.

Of course the PC needed for one isnt cheap either easily over $1000.

Will be interesting to see how many gens till they get more affordable for the mainstream as Palmer has said that even at $599 they are selling it at cost.

[Axe99]

Yeah, I think it'll still be pretty niche for a while, but a 'big' niche, because the games will have more 'wow' factor than the Kinect/Move niches that came before it.  $600 is definitely a tad on the high side for mainstream!

[I_live_4_fun]

I feel like trying out VR. I have only tried it once or twice from a couple years ago at PAX. The cost of entry for me to use Occulus Rift would definitely be huge though with needing to build a new high-end PC from scratch as well as buying the device. I'm a bit more interested PS VR for that reason for now till things become more affordable for mainstream audiences . Not that I would get it straight away either, hehe.