Facebook acquires Oculus VR • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#241

Post by bhtru » Tue, Mar 25, 2014, 10:12 PM UTC

objclxt wrote: post #130

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…

After the shock from this announcement I'm starting to drum up how and what Facebook are going to be doing with VR. Secondlife-esque world hub for all your freemium games; experience a "friend's life" through interactive media generated based on user data; a step above video-conferences by use of VR - challenging Skype, Google Hangout, et al., with a killer feature?

I think this may for the best for the future of VR. We know the gaming industry will use VR at some point and we know how they'll use it for the most part. It's a discussion well established in our popular culture. The potential innovation of VR as a medium would more likely happen with a company like Facebook rather than one like Valve.

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#242

Post by malanj » Tue, Mar 25, 2014, 10:12 PM UTC

selmnoo wrote: post #146

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…

I am shattered right now. I was so happy for Oculus VR, I wanted it to become big, I wanted it to become something truly special. And now this happens. I'm horrified and speechless. This is the day I stop cheering for Oculus VR and get behind Sony's Morpheus: http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/19/tech/gaming-gadgets/sony-morph... Notch on this deal: "We were in talks about maybe bringing a version of Minecraft to Oculus. I j…

I am shattered right now. I was SO happy for Oculus VR, I wanted it to become big, I wanted it to become something truly special.

You might be a bit premature with that comment. Mark Zuckerberg is not an idiot. He's probably smart enough to realise that Oculus need to truly remain independent for real innovation to continue.

This is probably a long-term bet on VR tech by Facebook, that they know would be too expensive to do in another 3-5 years. My bet: this is not going to kill Oculus, rather the opposite.

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#243

Post by neotek » Tue, Mar 25, 2014, 10:12 PM UTC

Mz wrote: post #170

reportingsjr wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it really always have to be about money? This is just stupid.

Try having none for a while. It's hard to stand by "principles" when you aren't eating. A lot of people are very, very afraid of stuff like that, even if they have not suffered in a long time or never really, truly suffered but maybe their parents grew up hungry and instilled in them terror of doing without. I mean, some folks stand by their principles. But, seriously, it's not easy.

Oculus wasn't exactly starving for cash, and even if they were investors would have beaten each other to death for a chance to pour some cash into it.

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#244

Post by lawl » Tue, Mar 25, 2014, 10:12 PM UTC

selmnoo wrote: post #146

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…

I am shattered right now. I was so happy for Oculus VR, I wanted it to become big, I wanted it to become something truly special. And now this happens. I'm horrified and speechless. This is the day I stop cheering for Oculus VR and get behind Sony's Morpheus: http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/19/tech/gaming-gadgets/sony-morph... Notch on this deal: "We were in talks about maybe bringing a version of Minecraft to Oculus. I j…

I'm really in a clinch now. Because I boycott Sony over the geohot incident[0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Computer_Entertainment_Am...

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#245

Post by julespitt » Tue, Mar 25, 2014, 10:13 PM UTC

rhizome wrote: post #194

julespitt wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the first indication, to me at least, that Facebook is going to be pursuing the "Bell Labs" style strategy that Google has been. For example, self-driving cars and robots are great new technologies and industries but have less than obvious connections to Googles core business. Facebook now would seem to be doing the same.

I don't think they're "great new technologies" so much as "pie in the sky" goal-spread diversification that shareholders like to see. There is a cultural aspect of the stock market where a range of goals is seen as more stable than, you know, getting real good at search and ads. I suspect this in Facebook-OVR. FB might ruin it, a la Yahoo-Flickr, or leave them alone, but Facebook isn't really making headlines these d…

I actually had the opposite impression of stock investors, that they vastly preferred the "just getting better at what you do" than "pie-in-the-sky", but that's just an impression.

Tightly-coupled Facebook-OVR would shock me, definitely.

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#246

Post by pera » Tue, Mar 25, 2014, 10:13 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #73

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. Now with the new "Live your friends life timeline feature, you can virtually live anyone elses life being projected right into your own set of VR goggles!" Ok so that is the dystopian view :-(. I really don't get this move yet, much to process. I suppose 'hang out with your friends in a virtual bar'? concepts?

http://nooooooooooooooo.com/

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#247

Post by doktrin » Tue, Mar 25, 2014, 10:13 PM UTC

lightcatcher wrote: post #109

I just finished reading "Masters of Doom" last night. The book is about id software, the company that made Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake and that pioneered 3D gaming. The book primarily follows John Carmack and John Romero, two of the founders of id. Carmack was responsible for developing almost all of the 3D engine code. After finishing Quake, (what I believe to be) the first fully 3D PC game, Carmack wanted to wo…

I'm currently reading MoD, and I agree with this analysis. I'm not thrilled about the purchase, but it does make sense given the ambitions of the players involved.

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#248

Post by TrainedMonkey » Tue, Mar 25, 2014, 10:13 PM UTC

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…

This was my first reaction as well, however we have to remember Carmack is there. I am confident that he will not let original spirit of Rift die. I am sure you will be able to use Rift without Facebook account and device will be quite hackable.

In any case, I think we should wait and see what Facebook does before crying foul.

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#249

Post by whatgoodisaroad » Tue, Mar 25, 2014, 10:14 PM UTC

Is anyone else reminded of this passage from the prolog to Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age?

> You could get a phantoscopic system planted directly on your retinas...You could even get telaesthetics patched into your spinal column at key vertebrae. But this was said to have its drawbacks ... it was rumored that hackers for big media companies had figured out a way to get through the defenses that were built into such systems, and run junk advertisements in your peripheral vision (or even spang in the ... middle all the time - even when your eyes were closed. Bud knew a guy like that who's somehow gotten infected with a meme that ran advertisements for roach motels, in Hindi, superimposed on the bottom right-hand corner of his visual field, twenty-four hours a day, until the guy whacked himself.

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#250

Post by incision » Tue, Mar 25, 2014, 10:14 PM UTC

s3r3nity wrote: post #177

selmnoo wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am shattered right now. I was so happy for Oculus VR, I wanted it to become big, I wanted it to become something truly special. And now this happens. I'm horrified and speechless. This is the day I stop cheering for Oculus VR and get behind Sony's Morpheus: http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/19/tech/gaming-gadgets/sony-morph... Notch on this deal: "We were in talks about maybe bringing a version of Minecraft to Oculus. I j…

>I am shattered right now. Oh come on -- this is just ridiculous. They (Oculus) now have many many more times the resources at their disposal than before to make countless imaginative projects. I know i'll get down votes for saying this, but if Google was the buyer, there would be much more positive comments here. Use some rational analysis here, folks.

>"Oh come on -- this is just ridiculous. They (Oculus) now have many many more times the resources at their disposal than before to make countless imaginative projects."

Honest question, do you have anything to base this idea that of "many many more times the resources" on? Have any companies been acquired by FB and immediately gone about pushing the envelope in ways that don't strictly line up the existing business of FB?

I think the concern here is entirely justified.

The Rift is a breakthrough product made possible by people who believed enough to back it via Kickstarter. Once delivered the community set about creating a whole range of wild stuff and general made those creations freely available.

Nobody wants to see their creativity hindered by some new corporate developer standards or restricted to distribution through something that sits behind a Facebook login.

Personally, I want the Rift to let me walk on the surface of the sun not allow me the privilege of paying a Facbook/NBA partnership for artificially scarce virtual "courtside" seats to a game.