News Facebook buys Oculus VR for $2bn

Except How would Facebook benefit from Oculus? How can Facebook bring Oculus to the masses without downgrading the technical specs so it's audience can use it and barely has a retail presence where anyone can try a Rift Headset? I mean being acquired by Apple would make more business sense (they'd be worse with the locked ecosystem but make more business sense as they have a retail presence that sells hardware and some can try it out) than the likes of Facebook. The only feasible way where Facebook could utilize it to make money back if they try to shove Facebook integration into it or have advertising in it unless this was all a ploy by Palmer and co to grab money and sooner or later and run for it. There's another thing that is hard to guarantee that Facebook will not force Oculus VR to integrate Facebook or at least make it optional when we just had last year Microsoft did a 180 with the Xbox One restrictions with online and used games.

I'd also point out that Oculus Rift won't likely sell millions in months that it'd require being bought to fully bring it out to many as possible. I'm still open to it but if they integrate it with Facebook software, data mining or the like then I will not buy it.

 

I often like to romantically imagine the internet as a place of intellectual discussion and content creation, but when looking at stuff like Luckey's thread on reddit I'm starkly reminded that it's actually for the most part a cesspool of overly dramatic, self-entitled assholes. (and also why I don't usually visit reddit)

I present to you, an anthology of the thread:

 

If it means we can play virtual rock, paper, scissors with our FB friends then I'm all for it.

(...or virtual charades. I can barely contain my excitement. )

 

No, that was UseNet: text only, mainly universities, research establishments and some hard core geeks with acoustic couplers at home, talking shop. Then Tim Berners-Lee (Higgs be upon him) invented HTML and the internet became accessible to the masses (shudder). Place hasn't been the same since.

 

Allow me the naive view. Facebook will benefit even if they don't touch it. They bought it, the profits (if any) will go to Facebook. If Zuckerberg is right about this being the "next big thing", then integration or not, it makes sense to buy into it. They can even resell it later on for more money.

I just think that they haven't figured it out yet. There "could" be something they can do with this, or not. This is just a one way bet. If I had 2 billion I would have bought the company myself.

 

There will be adverts, they will find a way, it will be annoying.

 

All you doomsayers: go read Neuromancer. At least watch Johnnie Mnemonic. Digest.

 

Oculus Addresses Some Of The Internet's Biggest Concerns.
http://kotaku.com/oculus-addresses-some-of-the-internets-biggest-concern-1552003153

 

Or just take a short walk, enjoy a cool beverage, and take a deep breath.

There, all better. Now the world is no longer collapsing because a single VR device is potentially, but entirely inconclusively, hampered by a perfectly logical and reasonable financial decision.

 

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That was almost the virtual version of shaking your fist and telling the kids to get off your lawn.

 

Pretty much.

Oh, and when my mobile rings, it makes a ringing sound, damn it!

With all this ranting at Luckey ("Why oh why did you do this? Why?! WHY?!?!"), nobody is considering why Facebook might have done this. Did Zuckerberg just blow $2 billion to have just another, tiny, tentative niche area to display its adverts to hardcore gamers? Does it really expect the average Facebook user to be wanting to wear VR goggles? Come on.

Zuckerberg obviously has a vision for this product that extends far beyond Facebook adverts.

 

while I agree a lot of people and backers seemed to have lost their composure, I can fully see where these entitled people are coming from. A lot of people seem to just be disregarding their views, personally I think if you are a customer or consumer or however you want to put it. You are entitled to comment on whatever you've purchased or brought into.

I'd imagine that if people had known, this was going to be the outcome of helping kick start Oculus VR, I doubt they would have backed it at all.

Me personally I was interested in the oculus, however I no longer am. I never backed it and will now never purchase it due to it's relations with facebook. Additionally due to this I'll probably never back anything crowd funded now.

My main concerns is how it will be monetised by facebook because it will, no company pays $2billion not to get involved or use what they purchase for themselves, and considering FB mostly makes it money advertising (and selling data although denied I do not believe that to be the case since they own everything single thing you upload or write on their service).

I can seem them offering it out as a service and allowing other companies to have access to its userbase for a price.

 

I'll concede to you on the technical specs for the most part, I just feel if they want it at a "mass market" price then it'd have to be something like say 199 USD in the US which means low persistence, lower Hz, lower resolution than what could be possible if it was higher price. Nobody wants a repeat of Sony and the difference between BOM and retail price with the PS3.

There's a difference between gift cards and a physical product like the Oculus Rift. Selling gift cards is a whole different ball game.

True but virtual theaters, video chats over the internet would have to be very low latency and not throw off wearers (nausea, doesn't make the wearer have "presence") which would require high speed internet infrastructure that does not have the network/ISP mucking around for very high bandwidth uses. By the time those two happen will Facebook be around in a state to do such operations or even exist? MySpace was popular mid-2000s and isn't now, can Facebook be able to do future operations even when their financial outlook is dubious and dodgy (*cough* when they went public *cough*)? I mean personally I think Virtual Reality will be big with the things you have listed as it will answer how most of the world will be able to enjoy the things that Suburban upper/middle Americans enjoy as the entire world's population could not be materially sustainable as them. In fact I bet that the likes of theme parks (why got to a theme park when a Virtual Reality world is as good or better?) and Live concerts (the Music Industry, both indie and big label are sick) won't be around when Virtual Reality becomes wide spread and also future workplaces will be based around Virtual Reality worlds and commuting to work will be very rare for the most part.

I am somewhat skeptical overall, on one hand I have not totally written off Oculus Rift yet on the other I am pessimistic that Luckey will keep to his word or Facebook won't make Oculus VR tie it to Facebook and make Oculus and VR a thing for social media only and VR doesn't become accepted by the mainstream.

 

There's a difference between a Virtual Reality Headset (which Zuckerberg is implying) and a Computer Monitor, if you want to have a Virtual Reality Theater that's believable you need a Virtual Reality Headset that outputs a very high frame rate and resolution and doesn't have much or null compression which would require far more bandwidth. Unless I'm wrong...

 

Joking aside, I don't really have a problem with Facebook buying Oculus out. Big-guy buys little guy, it happens in business all the time.

That's not to say I'd wouldn't have preferred Oculus to remain on its own though. There's something very attractive about smaller, niche companies independently producing specialist items. Sure, their products may be more expensive and have less mass-market appeal, but they are usually of a higher quality and have an ethos which is so often lacking today.

For example, imagine if B&W sold out to say, Tesco... just imagine.

 

There was Rumours that they were looking for a backer with cash for a long time, And with the delays and difficulties they have had getting screens its not at all surprising its eventually been brought.

The only real shock is by who.

No one else really has alot of cash and wants into to VR that badly to pay 2billion dollars, People saying Apple or Samsung are in dream land ( Niether company cares too much about desktop pc users ) and the rest are making competing products.

Sony MS and Valve are all looking to launch there own VR stuff. Does not leave alot of other technology companies to buy it.

Truthfully at least we might see a consumer version sometime this year.