News Facebook buys Oculus VR for $2bn

Palmer has stated that the deal means "custom everything". "No longer having to rely on scraps". Complete custom design from start to finish. He's also dismissed rumours of a single facebook controlled portal for Oculus as BS. He isn't going to let anything bad happen to his vision. I've been thinking about why it is people have reacted this way. It's down to how we perceive Zuckerberg versus Luckey. I don't think the Facebook movie helped Zuckerberg's image either. It's the polar opposite of the way Palmer is perceived. With Palmer we see someone with a genuine openness and passion to make his vision succeed. Someone who started from nothing but has achieved a lot in a short space of time. The view we have of Mark is very different. Kind of the arrogant nerd who can't be trusted with our privacy. However unfair this view is, it seems to have stuck and I guess the rapid expansion and world domination of Facebook further serves to alienate people. Yet here I am posting on facebook and interacting with friends there every day. So from my perspective there is some degree of hypocrisy in my negativity towards it.

After hearing from Palmer on Facebook I believe he is still just as committed to making Oculus succeed for the right reasons. Oculus will remain an open VR platform but with unlimited resources to optimise and deliver perhaps something even better than he could have hoped for. So despite my initial negative reaction I'm going to say that I still trust Palmer's vision for Oculus and I still intend to buy.

 

Microsoft own ~1.5% of Facebook so i'm guessing this will give them access / preference to Oculus.

Refunds to kickstarters is stupid, unless your donation was for stock.

I like everyone reacting like this, shows a lot of people don't like Facebook. but maybe its just me being biased as I deleted my account 2 years ago. I don't like the fact that it is a closed system that data mines, and the fact that it changed so much. What I liked when it first came out had been removed or significantly altered by the time i had left.

Anyone contemplating leaving, I would say do it. All the people I used to talk to are still available by phone/ text/ email (as you need a phone number or email address to create a FB login) twitter/ snapchat/ voxer/ telegram (not whatsapp oviously) etc. are also available. Plus it feels way more personal when you do get these direct contacts, Facebook always seemed like peering over the neighbours fence or messages attached to junk mail.

Loved the irony of the guy calling for a boycott, via his Facebook profile.

 

Yes, they would have had the same problem. But the intended market may now shift away from gamers - which may in- turn, drive down specs. Oculus was being marketed, and indeed had built up its cred as cutting edge gaming tech. In that sense if Valve had purchased Oculus I think the gaming community would have been far happier. Not that I blame them . I mean, $2bn isn't something you can sensibly turn down.

The idea of moving on to much higher resolutions looks unlikely though now. Everything about FB suggests casual & mass market and for that it'll need to be relatively inexpensive. This may be completely misreading things , but if it ends up a cheaper generic device with lower resolution and lower spec would you be surprised?

 

Why? Smartphones seem to get higher and higher resolution displays, so apparently there is a lot of interest for it in the "casual & mass market".

 

Considering what Facebook paid for WhatsApp, $2 billion seems almost cheap by today's corporate tech buyout standards. For that price, I'm a bit surprised Google didn't buy them, if for no other reason than to absorb some of the core technology elements and eliminate a possible future competitor.

 

Nailed it.

All this internet crycrycry is by people who only see companies for how they interact with them. Not the bigger picture. OR needs a ton of cash to have serious buying power in the display world, and getting a real product to market. Higher resolution is more viable than ever because instead of buying off the shelf they can now make a custom order from someone like Japan Display or Samsung. When you put a new product - a technically cutting edge one - to market you need to aim for the premium segment. It's where you are more free to spec higher, charge a higher price and sell less quantity but still recoup your development costs. You sell to the alpha-techies and if you can convince them they become your brand ambassadors: so demand grows. Then gen-2 has $600, $300, $60 kits with varying capability and application. So, maybe a $60 kit is a shitty low-res, but that's for mass market, whereas we're the kind of people who will be buying the $600 pimped out sexytime one.
I just hope they create a standard API and want to work with 3rd parties so we can make an ROG one. Then you'll get exponential choice and innovation.

Also KickStarter is not Equity. Welcome to the real world. Just because you supported a company during their growth phase doesn't mean you're a part of it.

 

A very interesting pitch, Mr Asus, thank you for your time.

 

I WANT TO PLAY SKYRIM VR GIVE IT TOOO MEEEE

 

Haha. Well I can't argue with that now, can I?

 

i'm just going to wait it out. if upon release facebook kept their promise of letting them operate independently then i'll be happy, otherwise goodbye oculus.

 

If they're given room to develop like that , then yes, it'd be a positive thing. It's certainly passing the PR test; more news coverage yesterday than all the time it's been around combined.

Interesting on 3rd parties . This seems like the sort of thing ASUS could develop better themselves, considering how they've shaken up the PC display and sound markets. However, that's another aspect of this OR acquisition by FB: Their legal team will be locking down everything with patents- so if FB screws this up , half of the tech will be unavailable to some other company to pick up and run with.

 

My guess is Mark Zuckerberg was on the bottle one night... yelled at his PA a slurred indecipherable way:

He wakes up and finds out she didn't help him order him a dev kit 2, but bought the entire company.

In my world, Mark Zuckerberg is a happy yet sleepy drunk.

 

So, if I understand correctly, I should never expect companies to be ethical and do the right thing, but I sure as hell should buy things from them. In the case of Asus, the Padphone case comes to mind, because of the lack of OS updates. So instead of getting angry about it, I have to buy a new Phonepad with a recent Android build, so that I can have an updated OS... Until next year. That's what I have to expect from a company, right?

Well, I sure as hell won't ever participate in crowdfunding, unless the project is free and open source. That's the only way to be sure.

That's what I'm a afraid of. If that happens, so much for innovation.

 

The DK2 is indeed impressive tech wise, but it's not final. Any backsliding on specs will be pounced on by critics.

On the broader points, many will hope you're right. If there are multiple models and no limitations placed on the OR development team's ambitions, or self defeating FB proprietary features, it'll be a fantastic product . But because it's FB, many are suspicious.

And ...Intel are primarily, first and foremost chip makers. FB's HW experience is zilch.

Obviously this can only be conjecture; no one knows, but much will now rest on how much freedom the original OR people have in shaping its future development direction.

 

I cant see the spec being lowered, if anything i think it will drive for ever better specs. As Luckey said. "VR will be lead by the games industry, largely because it's the only industry that already has the tools and talent required to build awesome interactive 3D environments."

Are non gamers going to be happy using a low spec VR system, or are they going to want the 3D environment to reflect real life as closely as possible.

Is it not better to be taken on by a company with no experience in your field of work ? That way it's more likely you get to call the shots, without being told that isn't how we do it.

 

Well it's just conjecture, but there could be a scenario whereby the FB people and the OR want to aim it at different markets - the more casual obv. being very price sensitive.

They may figure 'casuals' won't be fussy.

Who knows? That could go either way.

 

But going on what Luckey said that isn't going to happen. While things may change, or he maybe spewing PR bull, his word is all we have to go on ATM.

If anything he has said the opposite will happen.

If they wanted to make cheap VR units they would stick with using scraps from the mobile phone industry.