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Facebook acquires Oculus VR

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Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#381

Post by MrZongle2 »

balls187 wrote: post #367
pabb wrote: post #310

I think Notch of Minecraft fame just cemented the folly of this in a Tweet a second ago: > "We were in talks about maybe bringing a version of Minecraft to Oculus. I just cancelled that deal. Facebook creeps me out." The guy literally just visited Carmack (whom he admits is his idol) and the Oculus team less than a couple weeks ago, and kept mentioning how excited he was to start working on new VR games. I think this…

How much does Notch have to do with Minecraft these days? I thought it he was working on his space game.

Notch is a founder and owner of Mojang, the company that owns and produces Minecraft.

And his space game has apparently been on hold for months.

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#382

Post by dcre »

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 not as though the doctor and classroom ideas weren't already in Oculus's plans.

I too am wary of Facebook handling all of this data, but they also have an nearly unparalleled ability to make it happen.

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#383

Post by benched »

yid wrote: post #280
s3r3nity wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmmm that's not quite how Facebook works -- not everything needs final approval from the C-level suite (hell, that's their selling point to new hires.) And having some structure isn't always a bad thing - as long as it's the right kind. And I think it is in this case.

> not everything needs final approval from the C-level suite (hell, that's their selling point to new hires.) Would you care to back that up with anything (not the part in parentheses)?

Why does everything on this site need to be backed up? Am I supposed to take a personal interest in your epistemic state as a matter of charity?

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#384

Post by simonw »

"A few months ago, Mark, Chris, and Cory from the Facebook team came down to visit our office..."

Anyone know if that Cory is Cory Ondrejka, previously CTO of Linden Lab (Second Life)?

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#385

Post by cmdr2 »

I'm trying to calculate the valuation of Oculus VR. Obviously I don't know anything about calculating valuation :)

They have 70 employees [1], funding of $91 million [2], headset sales of 50K for DK1 [3] (although claims sales of 75K). Unknown IP, unknown partnership deals, unknown real-estate cost, unknown inventory, molds, and hardware assets.

I suspect that the valuation isn't entirely for their assets, but I cannot arrive at the 2 billion number. Do my 'unknowns' listed above complete the 2 billion mark?

[1] http://www.oculusvr.com/company/people/ [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oculus_VR, 2.5m kickstarter + 75 series B + 13.5 m unknown [3] http://www.gamespot.com/articles/oculus-rift-suspends-shipme...

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#386

Post by zacharyz »

d23 wrote: post #355
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…

> Despite Carmack's wishes, the rest of id decided to stick with making first person shooters and other video games. Really? I actually just finished MoD, coincidentally, and it seemed to me that the rest of the team wanted to do things other than the repeated Quake/Doom re-hashing, and Carmack basically refused. He wanted to work on his engine.

This was more a recent development and not covered in MoD and is the reason he left id. He wanted id to focus on VR but he couldn't get bethesada to buy in to the idea.

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#387

Post by maxden »

incision wrote: post #162
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…

Same. My initial reaction is to hate this. After thinking it over briefly I still hate it. I think I'm going to look to Carmack as my proxy. If he jumps ship, the whole thing is surely tainted.

Good point on seeing what Carmack will do.

Although they announced Carmack joining Oculus in August last year. Any idea how long the negotiations for this acquisition would likely take?

I too am disappointed the tech has gone into Facebook, I wonder what those game developers that currently support it are thinking, and how much integration there will be with Facebook login etc.

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#388

Post by cweiss »

Crito wrote: post #182
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.

"Facebook is the biggest name in social media." -> "Google, another tech powerhouse, is trying to push their social media offerings." -> "Google has 3 things that Facebook does not: Email, Youtube, and Glass." -> "Facebook is comfortable with the first two, since they have been there for years, but Glass is threatening to them." -> "Facebook needs their own 'Glass', in case Glass pans out." My prediction: Glass will…

This speaks to a fundamental misunderstanding of the two products. Oculus Rift is about bringing hyper-immersive 3D to the wearer, Google Glass is about moving the Google interface to the eyeball. It's like comparing a 4k TV to a Chromebook. Both are outstanding products, but there's little actual value-proposition overlap. I would hate to think that the Facebook board was equally ignorant of the differences and didn't just buy into "Google has a thing for the face, we need a thing for the face! We're Facebook after all!"

I'm less worried about folks being turned off of VR - That Oculus has such great traction means that other big tech manufacturers won't be too far behind emulating their display technology and coming out with competing products at lower pricing than the VR. At least one of them will actually be decent enough to sell well.

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#390

Post by skymt »

seth1010 wrote: post #316
skymt wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sony's "Project Morpheus" is supposed to be on par with the current Oculus kit and it's explicitly intended to pair with the PlayStation 4.

With the current Oculus kit? You mean the dev-kit 1? Because I have one of those and aside from playing around developing games on it for when a real version is shipped, I wouldn't pay $25 for it. Now I'm super worried that Sony is going to ruin VR by giving us a shitty version that makes everyone hate VR again.

What I heard was that the display is on-par with the second dev kit. (My mistake calling it their current kit; that was misleading.) 1080p, smooth head tracking, no noticeable lag.
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