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Facebook acquires Oculus VR

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Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#121

Post by reitzensteinm »

As a game developer that's interested in doing some work with the Oculus, I could see this going one of two ways:

1) Facebook could stay hands off, giving the company the company the breathing room and capital to absolutely revolutionize gaming, and then on to other fields.

2) Oculus as a "communication platform" is attempted too soon and the core team is drawn away working on pet projects resulting in a drastic lack of focus, which would kill the product (momentum is key here).

Given that Facebook is the acquirer, I'd lean much further towards #1. If it were Google, I'd bet money on #2 (see the GAE thread today).

I don't think the privacy stuff is going to be a big deal, by the time this turns from being an interface device to an integrated product like Glass, the market will have matured and there'll be plenty of competitors offering the former.

So, it'll either good or bad. You read it here first, folks.

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#123

Post by rjd »

evo_9 wrote: post #16

Fuck. This pisses me off for some reason.

Same reaction here. I'd say more about my opinion of Facebook and Zuckerberg business capabilities and behaviour, but it would add nothing to a civil discussion...

EDIT: for some laughs have a read of the Kotaku thread on facebook : https://www.facebook.com/kotaku/posts/10102759696153589 people are not happy

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#124

Post by hjnilsson »

lawl wrote: post #48

Damn! I don't like this. I had hoped they jump in bed with valve. Yes, I just really dislike facebook, so I hate to see them aquiring something i was really excited about. Also from the article: > After games, we're going to make Oculus a platform for many other experiences. Imagine enjoying a court side seat at a game, studying in a classroom of students and teachers all over the world or consulting with a doctor fa…

It's in one way sad how the stupendous amount of money available to the giants in this business makes them able to acquire any potential competitors. The only ones not being acquired are those who have the ambition to be giants themselves (Dropbox, Snapchat), it seems this was not the goal of Oculus. So now it'll just become another tentacle of the Facebook Empire.

Although I guess this is how most other businesses operate too. Finding a hit product allows you to become a multi-millionaire, but if you want to become a billionaire you have to have conviction as well. (Which has considerable risk as you might be killed. I can certainly imagine myself selling out when a billion-dollar deal is on the table, so I'm not saying it's a bad move to sell out, it's just sort of sad)

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#130

Post by objclxt »

neotek wrote: post #62

Why on earth would Oculus sell at all, least of all to Facebook? What possible reason could Facebook have to purchase a company so far removed from its core competency? People in the /r/oculus reddit are already expressing strong feelings of betrayal - eighty comments in under ten minutes, none positive. What a bizarre move.

> What possible reason could Facebook have to purchase a company so far removed from its core competency?

I would imagine Facebook feels under pressure to build up a core hardware engineering team. It's pretty clear that embedded and wearable computing is going to be a huge industry at some point in the future, and Facebook is going to need to get into that industry unless it wants to be indebted to and reliant upon hardware manufacturers.

So really, this acquisition makes sense for the same kind of reasons Google acquiring Nest makes sense - neither company has strong expertise or experience in consumer electronics hardware, and they need it going forward.

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