Oculus Rift is going mainstream, sold to Facebook for $2 bil

[Karu62]

I spent all day yesterday watching message boards melt down over the deal. this morning people are realizing that it is a good thing after all. Zuckerberg wants to create a virtual social hub with the Rift.

get ready for VR.

[MadManCK]

Yup, the end of the Oculus Rift as a cool item.

Facebook shares dropped 7% yesterday, as most think 2Bn is way too much for a garage developed tool, lol.
Only winner so far is a 21 year old dude who started the project. BTW only 400M was paid in cash, the rest in overpriced facebook shares.

Upside of the story is that Zuckerberg has the dough to properly develop the kit.
But when you have to login through Facebook to play a game with the Oculus, well.... i pass.

[Karu62]

I think its going to be a good thing. the dev kit 2 is working with the new technology's and internally is what the consumer model will have. they still have to make the final design and start production. that's where Facebook steps in. they have the money to buy parts in large quantity's for consumer production. it is possible we could see a consumer version by early next year.

they are also talking about it being low cost. that will be the deciding factor for me. I have been holding out on replacing my Wal-Mart bought 19" monitor. if it turns out an Oculus Rift is cheaper than a monitor I will get one.

[MadManCK]

My guess is that it will be around 600$

But you will never know

[Bez]

Well they do have a rival


Sony’s Project Morpheus has been getting some good reviews lately
[BBvideo 640,360]http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/19/55267 ... BmiU28wahO[/BBvideo]

[Miao]

Facebook Buys Oculus Rift For $2 Billion

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"Mobile is the platform of today, and now we're also getting ready for the platforms of tomorrow," Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg says. "Oculus has the chance to create the most social platform ever, and change the way we work, play and communicate."

ing scum, Zuckerburg. Phones are NOT a l33t gaming system and should not be used for those retarded Facebook games.

[dpuff]

Im not happy with this ordeal, but I probably still end up buying the consumer version.

[grooks10]

I'm not overly excited about it either, the Persson himself said that there would be no Facebook integration, so it doesn't sound like you would have to sign in to Facebook to use it. Zuckerburg wants to turn it into a device to connect people virtually, but not by spamming ads and status updates, more like allowing people to speak face to face with doctors, letting students attend classes from home, etc. If it actually gets put to these uses, it might be a good thing. So for now, it still sounds like a gaming device, and all that other stuff is long term. I don't like that Facebook is going to be its financial backer, but Facebook probably has better intentions with the company than would other groups like Microsoft or Apple. I'm curious to see how all this plays out, especially now that the Xbox is falling behind the times when it comes to VR!

[MadManCK]

It has all signs of a buyout tech race in Silicon Valley, between Google and Facebook. Buy all race horses on the track and you always have a winner.

But lets say he is not lying (impossible in this case) and wants to develop an entertaining/gaming device.
Some numbers; If they can produce and distribute it for about 300$ (i think it will probably be more) and make a profit of 100$ each.
Than you would have to sell 20.000.000 Oculus Rifts just to cover the acquisition costs, not talking further development and production costs, distribution setup, marketing and branding costs and bribing game developers to sell their virtual souls to Facebook.

You can see some tension in that model, to put it mildly. So where does the extra income come from to cover all costs and make a nice profit? User data. Plain simple.
Or maybe i missed something.

There will be some fierce competition as well. Sony has a better looking one that has no motion tracking right now, but there is one in development for use with the PS4. And there will be more.

Maybe this tech race will increase VR development speed in general. In that case we, the customers, will benefit from it.