Facebook buying Oculus VR for $2 billion

[FlatSpinMan]

It would just seem so pointless using VR for social media. Watching sports game etc, sure, but I'd assumed the Rift would be set up for them anyway.

I'm still keen on getting one - unless FB really bork it somehow.

[Blooddawn1942]

Now thats it for me. I'm not interested in participating on anything which is connected with F***Book or anything else performing such an mass-leech of personal data.

So I'm going to stay with my Track IR...

[Finkeren]

Jeez. I'm actually an avid Facebook (ab)user, but I just don't get, why they feel they have to buy up and ruin stuff that's got nothing to do with their business. Just stick to what you're best at: Connecting a lot of people and selling their private information to corporations.

[I/JG27_Rollo]

Hey that's great!

 

When playing BoS or other games, we can have our friends list right next to our ingame map and right as you're about to let loose on an enemy aircraft - a WhatsApp message will pop up!

[Mastermariner]

Its all over the net, people are jumping ship. Where will this end? I see the oportunity for new competition.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/03/25/notch-minecraft-on-oculus-canceled-facebook-creeps-me-out

 

Master

[LukeFF]

There is no way in the world I'm going to add to Zuckerberg's already massive pile of cash. 

[Matt]

I guess "Cloud Imperium Games" will be next.

 

Will wait and see how it goes. I won't create a legit FB account for that. But i guess i'll get a Rift anyhow.

[LLv32_kankkis]

 

 

[Mysticpuma]

So there you are, just about to get your shot on the target...you're just putting the gunsight on the mark..........."YOU HAVE A NEW FRIEND REQUEST" pops up in the centre of the screen.....NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

 

So there you are, just about to get your shot on the target...you're just putting the gunsight on the mark. "CANDY CRUSH SAGA HAS A NEW LEVEL FOR YOU TO ENJOY" .............NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

 

 

Ah the future looks great

[jaydee]

LOL Just as we had things working pretty well. I hope this doesn't add a bunch more hoops to jump through.

 

Jason

Dread the Day when I have to join Facebook just to Fly !

[Feathered_IV]

With two billion dollars to recoup before seeing a cent of their mega-profits, one can anticipate a healthy price hike of the retail version.

[DD_bongodriver]

With two billion dollars to recoup before seeing a cent of their mega-profits, one can anticipate a healthy price hike of the retail version.

 

 

Nope, a price drop, it's about reaching the masses.

[MarcoRossolini]

Oh dear... so all my "friends" will receive a notification the second I fire up the oculus rift? Not that I'd get it, it seems too disorientating to me...

[Streiff]

Just read that the developers of Minecraft are cancelling their work to bring OR into the game. So it begins.

 

 

Mark Zuckerberg did have some interesting ideas though. Like having ringside seats at a game right at home, talking to your doctor face to face, studying with teachers and students from all over the world, etc etc.

 

Could be huge cash cow in the future, time will tell what this means for OR in games. Doesn't look good right now though, since game developers already starting to back away.

Edited March 26, 2014 by Baron

[DD_bongodriver]

Yep, the cost will come down because Oculus won't have to scratch around looking for manufacturers, they now have a big prestigious pie that lots of people will line up to buy into, right down to the company that might want to make the elastic strap.

[DD_bongodriver]

Just read that the developers of Minecraft are cancelling their work to bring OR into the game. So it begins.

 

The developer of minecraft has done nothing toward OR compatibility anyway, and I think will change tune very quickly.

[Finkeren]

Do you really think the Oculus will sell millions upon millions (which is what would be needed to recoup the investment) without some serious simplification of the product to cater to the COD/BF-crowd getting rid of everything that makes it great for simmers?

 

The only other justification I can see for buying it, is to get a competitor off the market.

[Finkeren]

I hope you're right about the last bit, but looking at history, it doesn't look good.

 

In retrospect, Wii was a pretty horrible motion control product, deliberately simplified and "dumbed down" for the masses. The result: Noone really care that much about that form of control anymore.

 

If Oculus Rift is going to be the Wii of VR, I think I'll pass.

[Streiff]

Have done nothing and planing to do (they where planing to) are 2 completely different things. And besides, Marcus Persson (@notch) is hardly short on cash. And there is already a mod available making it possible to use OR in Mincraft, so he has no reason what so ever to kiss up to FB.

[Sternjaeger]

erm, fellas, the iPhone retails at jaw dropping prices for what it really is, yet it's the most sold mobile device ever.. 

I don't think prices will change much, and again, I think we're missing the whole point here: Facebook didn't just buy the product, they're buying the technology, R&D and expertise. They will develop something that is more suitable to a "connected life", something to watch and to share, picking up on the google glass flop and making something new with that concept. 

 

The problem is how they implement things: look at Instagram for instance, since they bought it, all they did was to increase its compatibility and functionality on social networking, they haven't released ONE single new filter or functionality since. 

 

I for one am against this, so even if the price will stay the same, or be less, I will not want to finance a product which will be developed not for the sake of gamers, but for their own interests. 

 

An economist I worked with for some time said to me once "if a finance giant touches a project/enterprise, it means that money won, and it's pretty much a death sentence for the original drivers and spirit behind the project"..

Edited March 26, 2014 by Sternjaeger

[DD_bongodriver]

a VR headset is just a peripheral.

[Rivet]

Christ! I'm glad I didn't bother buying into the sdk versions of OR now. I certainly won't be buying into anything owned by Zuckerberg's FacePoop data mining virus, sorry - social media service.

 

Kankiss, there could be a lot of truth in that image. Just a funny joke or more prophetic? We'll have to wait and see

[DD_bongodriver]

 

Perhaps Zuckerberg is intelligent enough to realise he will make more money from VR without any need to bolt it onto his existing product.

 

I don't have that much faith in him, it's quite apparent he is going to work something into it, I'm just hoping it is independent of the hardware itself but rather he will change facebook to fit into the VR experience.

[Georgio]

Anyone making a knee-jerk reaction based on the announcement is setting themselves up to have egg on their face.

 

FB has an audience of 1.2billion users!

 

FB can advertise to those users for free, and in very targeted ways.

Only a tiny fraction of FB users will need to buy the hardware in order to make a return.

 

Yep but it's when the targeted user is me and I'm flying that is when I'll get mad.

 

I really don't understand the logic with this from Oculus's point of view, they had the money/tech/people/demand and they've sold out just as they're about to cross probably one of the most important thresholds since Englebart decided to tape up a few rollers in the 60's to make the first mouse.

I can see that VR is going to be an important revolution in the next ten years or so, but I for one would have been happier if FB had provided competition not asset stripping.

 

Still what do I know, if someone offered me 2 billion I'd probably sell my granny too...

[Revvin]

 

You're saddling up on a 109, just about to go in for the kill, you're all lined up, just pull the trigger and 'bing' another damn invite fills the screen from one of your so called friends inviting you to play Candy Crush or Farm Friends Saga

[Sternjaeger]

a VR headset is just a peripheral.

 

it is now, but I think they're thinking a much bigger thing with that.. 

 

Not really true though. The cost of the hardware is swallowed up in the subscription cost. I don't know many people that actually bought their iPhone.

In fact, a great many of the misguided fools actually thought they got theirs for free.

 

 

From what I know about Instagram, the acquisition hasn't actually changed the product much. Those people that used it before have lost nothing.

 

Perhaps Zuckerberg is intelligent enough to realise he will make more money from VR without any need to bolt it onto his existing product.

 

Yeah, but you still pay a lot a month to have it. What I meant is that keeping the pricing popular won't be a primary concern, their goal will be to make it palatable for a wider audience, by implementing mobile-like features and a full social networking implementation. Again, think google glass 2.0..

 

Re. Instagram, when it was still independent, they regularly released updates, filters and features, but since it was taken over by FB they only stabilised the software, gave it a better GUI and improved the social network integration. They introduced short video snippets to take a chunk of market off of Vine as well.

 

They're monsters, pure and simple.

[Georgio]

http://www.reddit.com/user/palmerluckey

 

Some interesting comments here from Luckey....

Edited March 26, 2014 by Georgio

[SimFreak]

With all cancelled orders, hopefully I'll get my dev2 kit sooner. I don't care about sky falling cries...I need another addition to increase immersion of simulated flying and this VR is it. Now if only another company could redesign G940 FB stick...

[DD_bongodriver]

 

You're saddling up on a 109, just about to go in for the kill, you're all lined up, just pull the trigger and 'bing' another damn invite fills the screen from one of your so called friends inviting you to play Candy Crush or Farm Friends Saga

 

Gamers are where 'all' the interest in VR has been generated, piss them off like that and you shoot yourself in the foot, there is no possible way they could even consider operating like that.

[DD_bongodriver]

it is now, but I think they're thinking a much bigger thing with that.. 

 

 

They are without doubt, but their dream of world domination won't work until everyone has the device and can't live without it, as of now the VR mainstream are geeky gamers with anger issues, they better tread carefully.

[Finkeren]

I'll stop viewing corporations as villains the day they stop acting like villains

 

Seriously, the thing that bothers me most is when a big company like Facebook can't just stick to doing what they are succesful at doing but have to start expanding into completely unaffiliated branches and start buying up promising projects in hope of turning some of them into profit and close down the rest.

 

When a succesful business tries to play investment bank, it's always cause for alarm.

Edited March 26, 2014 by Finkeren

[DD_bongodriver]

Why is looking to secure a profitable future for your company a villainous act?

[PeterZvan]

Acctually what will probably be mandatory is to be able to use the Rift you will have to be a Fb user + possibly when turning on the Rift potentionaly you will have to be conected to FB with many different adds coming in before you are able to use it normaly. Than during usage I dont belive that they will be puting in adds - that would go way to far for all people and it simply would not be usefull than.

Even so its a no go for me as I am a passionate Fb hater - I think that Fb is the worst thing that computers brought to mankind and it makes people even more stupid (or maybe I should say that it helps turn people into zombies - just use the subway or simmilar in a big city and see how many people are using their mobiles / tablets to constantly look at Fb - watch how they move and interact and you could swear that half of them are zombies)

And tbh - I wasnt keen on the Rift anyway - I am ok with using my keypad only for the view sistem. But I am interested to try it just to see what its like.

[Freycinet]

Facebook employees are already beginning to plant postings on Reddit and other discussion fora to defend the sale:

 

http://i.imgur.com/lW6il6I.png

 

Same postings, but from different user names... - So cheap and stupid...

 

Well, Palmer Lucky sold out. He'll be rich, but will he be happy?

Edited March 26, 2014 by Freycinet

[Aracno]

I was talking about Facebook using the Facebook platform to advertise the Rift, not the other way round!

 

I can't decide if people really genuinely believe that FB will be using the Rift to place pop-up adverts and friend requests over their game of BOS?

 

People are just being intentionally melodramatic for comedic effect right?

 

Actually no, forget that, I bet people do genuinely believe that.

 

lol 

 

I dont think there will be pop up and ads when using rift but I dont want to be tracked in my own activity and I dont want to be forced to have a FB account for enjoy VR.

And with FB at least the first thing, tracking users activity, you can be sure they will do it, with or without making it public.

Edited March 26, 2014 by Aracno

[Freycinet]

I can't decide if people really genuinely believe that FB will be using the Rift to place pop-up adverts and friend requests over their game of BOS?

 

No, but FB will defintely want to monitor your usage of the Rift and use the information they mine to target ads at you, build up knowledge about you.

[kestrel79]

I have this odd idea that Facebook and Google are in an arms race to see who can become Skynet first.

 

Haha this made me laugh as me and my brother have the same joke. With all the talk of drones and VR it doesn't seem too far fetched.

[Bladderburst]

I don't really get the uproar here.

[BraveSirRobin]

Haha this made me laugh as me and my brother have the same joke. With all the talk of drones and VR it doesn't seem too far fetched.

 

It's not all bad.  I recently saw a news story about some company that wanted to use drones to deliver beer.

[Sternjaeger]

They are without doubt, but their dream of world domination won't work until everyone has the device and can't live without it, as of now the VR mainstream are geeky gamers with anger issues, they better tread carefully.

 

...before 2007 smartphones were few and far between, look at it now...

 

What is it about Facebook that makes people view it as a Monster?

 

I'm personally far more wary of a company like Apple with it's walled garden approach to software and distribution, it's poor record on worker's rights.

 

Facebook are just a large organisation that has advertising at it's heart, it uses the data we allow it to in creative ways to tempt us into buying crap.

No different to Google and not much different to most of the TV and radio stations the world over.

 

It amuses me how huge successful corporations are always painted as villains.

 

Perhaps comic books and sci-fi movies have conditioned us more than we realise.

 

Seriously guys? Don't you really see what Facebook has become?

 

As of today, it's the biggest planetary human database, whose users voluntarily populate with personal information and commercial preferences (every time you put a "like" on a product, person etc.. you are commercially profiling yourself), and which subtly uses your internet searches to profile ads on your Facebook page.

 

Surely you might be immune to all this, but millions of users aren't, especially minors, and dismissing the gravity of this is irresponsible to say the least. 

 

It's only a matter of time before this information will be available for sale (and in a way it is indirectly now, thanks to their ad hoc advertising). 

 

Again, don't think of it with just your educated/experienced internet user approach, think of it on a broader scale.

 

And to give you an example: Mrs. Sternjaeger and I have finally bought a house, and the day we finalised the sale, the house popped up as suggested ad on my facebook feed.. not any house, the house I just bought, probably because I visited the page several times in the previous 48 hours... I find it quite frankly disturbing.