The Future of Virtual Reality

When Facebook first approached us about partnering, I was skeptical. As I learned more about the company and its vision and spoke with Mark, the partnership not only made sense, but became the clear and obvious path to delivering virtual reality to everyone.

I'm sure 2 billion dollars helped this decision along quite nicely.

bane2• 12 years ago

One of these days, Mark is going to realize that not every acquisition has to be in the billions. And then he'll realize he could have acquired 3 or 4 times as many companies.

baby• 12 years ago

You have to keep in mind that spending a billion is also publicity. People are going to talk about it and see this is a crazy investment.

WalterSear5• 12 years ago

I'm convinced that Oculus could have gotten much more, from Facebook or elsewhere.

JamesArgo• 12 years ago

VR is bigger than gaming, bigger than sports or interactive drama or pornography. It's an alternative world that can be built from the ground up, that will allow us to experiment with new forms of embodiment and society. The whole process involves experimenting with, and shedding certain aspects of, one's identity. And Facebook wants to cast our identities in stone - and god help those who maintain pseudonyms.

This great team of hackers got wealth in exchange for their dream. It's a shame; they could have kept the dream and sold their product instead.

mwilcox• 12 years ago

The thing that gets people is that, as backers of the Kickstarter / customers of the developer kit, you ARE an investor. Sure - not an investor in the sense that you own a piece of the company. But you are investing your time and money into the potential consumer success of the product, by buying the hardware and developing a game for that. You are right to feel betrayed, it you feel this disrupts the potential consumer success.

pekk3• 12 years ago

as Notch put it, "And I did not chip in ten grand to seed a first investment round to build value for a Facebook acquisition." (His post is worth reading for those who haven't yet: http://notch.net/2014/03/virtual-reality-is-going-to-change-...)

toufka• 12 years ago

VR is powerful precisely because it is communication. And communication with Facebook in the middle is such bad communication. No sane teacher, lawyer, doctor, CEO, judge, politician, etc. would permit facebook to be a third party to important communication. The dream of VR enabling and enhancing these communications has just taken a major step backwards with the least trustworthy name in communication swooping in to commandeer the intellectual property associated with the most promising of these technologies.

WalterSear5• 12 years ago

No it's not.

It will be, but it's not. Right now, you can play games on an Oculus. You can't watch basketball games, we aren't watching interactive live drama. It will mature as a gaming platform before any of the other things it is to become, come to fruition.

justin66• 12 years ago

It's entertaining the way Palmer Luckey calls it a partnership and Zuck calls it an acquisition.

general_failure2• 12 years ago

Indeed, Palmer tries very hard to make us believe so. He uses the term partnership atleast 4 times. In contrast, zuck makes no mention of it (he uses the term partner but in different contexts).

WalterSear5• 12 years ago

Us? Or himself?

yeukhon• 12 years ago

There is zero information about what is going on in the future of VR. I know business plans are confidential but it'd be nice to leak some ideas other than "we will continue to run as the same team day to day" and "we will benefit from the rich resource FB can provide to us."

lawl• 12 years ago

Oculus was the future of VR. Emphasis on was.

pekk3• 12 years ago

Oculusbook is the future of profitable mind-reading and by extension, mass behavioral control.

I have no doubt that once someone figures out a way to miniaturize and mass-produce even half-effective neuroimaging or even transcranial magnetic stimulation rigs, the first applications will be advertising (read: mass corporate surveillance at an unprecedented depth) and VR.

WalterSear5• 12 years ago

Facebokulus, please.

mladenkovacevic3• 12 years ago

I wonder what Facebook wants out of VR. I'm sure they're not counting on it to propel Farmville 2.0 (at least I hope not).

Perhaps they feel that VR will be a new interface paradigm - The mouse/Keyboard or the touchscreen of the 2020s. Being the first one to define this paradigm would give Facebook a huge advantage in the next fight for computing and communication mindshare - scary I know. It sounds a little off right now, but imagine if the VR set becomes more mobile and easier to put on and take off... or why even take it off. You could interface with data in three dimensions or communicate with people as if they were right there next to you. I think this is a much longer play for Facebook than anyone gives them credit for.

lmg6432• 12 years ago

I don't see the fit here. I get Microsoft buying the Kinect platform for Xbox. Instantly plug it into games, you have an incredible game option, and additional features get built down the line.

Seems like the first stop for a VR headset would be with an existing top-tier game console manufacturer. for the sole reason that they already have a library of material, most of which is an immersive world you navigate with a joystick, which would benefit greatly from a headset. additional use cases down the line. Sony was launching their own, so nintendo or microsoft would make sense.

for facebook - most facebook games are simple, like farmville - not really benefitting from a VR helmet. how do i interact with my friends in a VR helmet if they are wearing one too? neither face is actually visible - step down from facetime, hangouts etc. photo immersion perhaps?

I guess i will be one of the stunned outsiders when i see what amazing use case facebook has for this.

mladenkovacevic3• 12 years ago

I was trying to make the argument that Facebook probably DIDN'T buy them for games (ie Farmville).

I'm saying that it's a longer bet. Maybe they see it as a new interface for general computing. It certainly has that intimate, only-I-know-what-I'm-doing quality that voice commands (Siri and Google Now for example) don't have.

ekianjo• 12 years ago

It sounds a little off right now, but imagine if the VR set becomes more mobile and easier to put on and take off... or why even take it off.

It will take a long time to get there. Even gamers who have eyes moving faster than normal people have had nauseous sensations after using the Rift for extended periods of time. Stuff like that will make it a big hurdle for VR to go mainstream in the short-mid term.

badsock• 12 years ago

I can't help but be reminded of eBay's acquisition of Skype. Back then people talked about how it must be part of some grand strategy that would surely be revealed as eBay played its hand, because it didn't make a lot of sense at the time. What use could an auction site have for what is essentially a telecom company?

Turned out there really was no concrete business reason, just senseless feeding frenzy and hand-waving about vision. Terrible idea for both companies.

mladenkovacevic3• 12 years ago

This buy could also be a purely preception-shaping move for Facebook. Sort of to send investors the message that "We're not just a spammy social network, we've interested in bigger things". The uptick in stock price alone from this kind of change in perception could make up for the Oculus investment many times over (I think the cash part of the deal was "only" something like 400 million?)

The Future of Virtual Reality

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