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News Facebook buys Oculus VR for $2bn

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Meanmotion, 26 Mar 2014.

  1. Meanmotion

    Meanmotion bleh Moderator

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  2. Dave Lister

    Dave Lister Minimodder

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    Well this is very bad news, and I'd think this will disrupt the whole development of VR.
     
  3. DrTiCool

    DrTiCool Minimodder

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    **** no
     
  4. theshadow2001

    theshadow2001 [DELETE] means [DELETE]

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    Always disappointing when a company I don't like or trust acquires something I was very keen on.
     
  5. ashchap

    ashchap Minimodder

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  6. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    Good thing, IMO. Facebook has no intentions to mess with the gaming objectives of Occulus Rift, but can throw a lot of money and influence behind it. Once a promising, but little fringe company it is now backed by a big player and has become a Real Thing.

    Anyone who read Neuromancer will remember the vision of the Web as an immersive VR environment. Zuckerberg obviously has the same vision.
     
  7. Corky42

    Corky42 Where's walle?

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    Selling out to the highest bidder never goes down well, I'm guessing a lot of people who backed Oculus are feeling rightly miffed. I get the feeling the true impact of this wont be felt for a good few years.
     
  8. GeorgeStorm

    GeorgeStorm Aggressive PC Builder

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    To me it seems like the benefits will probably outweigh the negatives.

    More money behind it, far bigger visibility etc
     
  9. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    Who else should have bought it? Google? As bad as Facebook. Microsoft? Would ruin it with asinine committee management. Sony? Has its own system; would only buy to kill it off. Apple? Not its thing, and would lock it to their ecosystem only. Valve? Yes, but they'd lock it to only their ecosystem.
     
  10. Meanmotion

    Meanmotion bleh Moderator

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    Unintentional puns for the win.
     
  11. GeorgeStorm

    GeorgeStorm Aggressive PC Builder

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    :D
     
  12. Dave Lister

    Dave Lister Minimodder

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    On the other hand there was no apparent reason to sell it. They were often in the news (more than sony's VR) for positive reasons, they were constantly developing it and seemed to have a lot of interest from developers.
     
  13. s1n1s

    s1n1s What's a Dremel?

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    would have been happy for them to remain independent that was the appeal in the oculus for me, why go this far then sell out.

    any big company who brought oculus would have been a bad thing and to think facebook will not meddle is naive, you don't spend 2 billion on something and then leave it as is

    I can only imagine all the data facebook will sell with this, not to mention all the shoehorned social "experiences"

    on a plus note check this https://twitter.com/minliangtan/status/448606945272803328
     
  14. Maki role

    Maki role Dale you're on a roll... Lover of bit-tech

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    Personally I don't think they'd have done very well on their own. The thing is, Sony's Morpheus would have started market competition. Now competition is good, but only if both sides are balanced. If they're not balanced, then it becomes a whitewash and the loser effectively goes out of business.

    If Sony are making one, it'll probably be PS4 exclusive, but then do you honestly think Microsoft won't make something to compete with Sony's for their xbox? So out comes the Microsoft equivalent, which could well support PC connections (like with kinect or the 360/One controller). With a big player like that, things could get tight. The occupies guys have already faced massive issues sourcing parts, would they really be able to continue like that for long?

    As long as Facebook treats Occulus as a separate entity, everything will be fine. The extra R&D budget, studio support and manufacturer support will all be hugely beneficial to the cause.
     
  15. will_123

    will_123 Small childs brain in a big body

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    I really hope they focus on what OR was intended for before they start spinning it out to make investors happy....I want GAMEZ! I dont think this is good news, but will be happily proven wrong :)

    "We're clearly not a hardware company. We're not gonna try to make a profit off of the devices long term. We view this as a software and services thing, where if we can make it so that this becomes a network where people can be communicating and buying things and virtual goods, and there might be advertising in the world, but we need to figure that out down the line."

    Zuckerberg quoted on TechCrunch src: http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/25/why-facebook-bought-oculus/
     
  16. PCBuilderSven

    PCBuilderSven Minimodder

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    Yes, like 24 hour spying by the us, the NSA, and anyone who throws some cash our way. Then, thanks to all our spying, we can also throw adverts right at your face which are ideadlly targetted to piss you off as much as possible. Full screen ads just got a whole new meaning. Then we'll integrate it with facebook, so you need to be logged in at all times to use it, and we'll ensure that that process is as unstable as possible so you can never use it. We'll also make sure that all bandwidth of your internet connection is used up by us, so there's no way you'll every get a good online experience.
     
  17. SchizoFrog

    SchizoFrog What's a Dremel?

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    Oculus Rift, the future of Farmville.
     
  18. SimoomiZ

    SimoomiZ What's a Dremel?

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    I agree , probably better to reserve judgement .

    But there are concerns over the proprietary steps Facebook may take, i.e., if someone develops some amazing application for it and is making a lots of money will they try to nudge them out , or take an Apple type locked down approach? They claim O VR will be independent , but will it? Will you need to log in to a FB account to play games etc ? Will exciting features like future 4k plans lose out to production cost/profit margin decisions? Will they be interested in keeping things like its more expensive OLED tech? There are lots of ways it could go wrong as a result of this buy out . And against those is the FB potential to promote/market the device properly.
     
  19. Yaka

    Yaka Multimodder

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    Meh was looking at getting one to tinker around with but won't, hope it won't need a FB acount to use when it goes retail.
     
  20. Umbra

    Umbra What's a Dremel?

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    On Twitter: Markus Persson ?@notch 13h

    "We were in talks about maybe bringing a version of Minecraft to Oculus. I just cancelled that deal. Facebook creeps me out."

    Obviously doesn't creep him out that much, https://www.facebook.com/minecraft
    wonder if he would have said that if facebook offered him a few million before the game took off :lol:

    Mark Zuckerberg said on the call to investors,
    "We're clearly not a hardware company. We're not gonna try to make a profit off of the devices long term. We view this as a software and services thing, where if we can make it so that this becomes a network where people can be communicating and buying things and virtual goods, and there might be advertising in the world, but we need to figure that out down the line."

    Mmm, So your sniping that head shot and a "Buy Ammo from Wallmark" virtual advert rolls out the end of your virtual barrel :sigh:
     
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