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Facebook acquires Oculus VR

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Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#541

Post by mcphilip »

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.

In theory, the oculus team will have more resources at their disposal. However, they are now apart of a publicly traded company with an emphasis on meeting investors' expectations on a quarterly basis. Also, new layers of oversight will necessarily be introduced, potentially limiting their ability to pursue industry related partnerships unless FB management can be made to see the worth of such deals.

I'm withholding judgement until someone respectable like Carmack comes forward with a rationale for why this is ultimately a good thing.

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#542

Post by marvin »

mwilcox wrote: post #372
frakkingcylons wrote: post #179

Palmer Luckey (founder of Oculus VR) just wrote a statement[0] on the Oculus subreddit: "I’ve always loved games. They’re windows into worlds that let us travel somewhere fantastic. My foray into virtual reality was driven by a desire to enhance my gaming experience; to make my rig more than just a window to these worlds, to actually let me step inside them. As time went on, I realized that VR technology wasn’t just…

Wow. He is getting demolished there.

No joke. I hope he's thick-skinned, this kind of verbal abuse from hundreds of disappointed techies would at least leave me feeling very exposed.

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#543

Post by prawn »

FD3SA wrote: post #460

This is extremely disappointing. This technology had the potential to be much bigger than Facebook. The Occulus was poised to create an entirely new industry. They were pioneering a technology never before seen, with a legend like John Carmack pushing the state of the art. I cannot think of a more colossal mistake to make as a founder. Palmer Luckey has shown he has absolutely no faith in his ability nor that of his…

I'm not excited about this news either, but let's say Oculus doesn't do this. What if, in two years, Valve have a similar product out there, with more convincing immersion and their existing community and game contacts. And Sony have Morpheus pushed to PS4 fans and their existing developer contacts. And for those two years, Oculus have moved along with their existing community and existing funding.

Maybe they wanted the certainty (from almost anyone) that they could ramp things up and make sure they were strong and first out there?

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#544

Post by jamesie »

fasteddie31003 wrote: post #52
sz4kerto wrote: post #6

The reason why people haven't commented yet because we can't find the words. I have no immediate idea what can FB do with Oculus VR, even if I read Zuck's comments.

Facebook knows that Facebook.com is toping off. It wants to spread its reach. I really don't think there will be any crossover between Oculus and Facebook, just like there isen't any crossover between Windows and XBox.

Social gaming on Facebook -> Play VR games with Facebook friends.

I bet rules that limited other social games from promoting themselves on Facebook won't be as stringent as for Oculus games.

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#545

Post by marknutter »

Everyone in this thread is being ridiculous. Since Facebook bought Parse the service hasn't been tainted whatsoever. Facebook is just buying promising businesses and startup because - gasp - hitting home runs is hard! You may dislike Facebook the product but hating Facebook the company is short sided.

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#546

Post by prawn »

Crito wrote: post #452
cweiss wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I completely understand the difference between the two products. I've used both, though own neither. They are two very different products but I maintain that they represent two different approaches to the same problem, pushing us past our current understanding of what I/O devices are. Google Glass is a push into the unknown, Facebook may not agree that it is in the right approach, but you are kidding yourself if they…

In the future, both will be important and will likely merge. If someone can make goggles which can switch between immersive VR and AR, they will do well. I think approaching this from the VR side rather than AR could be tougher and best in the long run.

Oculus has will be the thing that teenagers use to hang out online in the future. Something like Second Life will replace Instagram which replaced Facebook which replaced tying up the landline talking for hours each evening with the BFF.

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#547

Post by StillBored »

I'm not sure this is really all that big of a deal. Mostly because I don't really see hard evidence from the oculus guys that they have solved the two main problems with VR headsets. Resolution and latency. Sure, they talk about it a lot. http://www.oculusvr.com/blog/the-latent-power-of-prediction/ but the resolution is still low, and the frame rate numbers don't appear any better than what I remember from my days at the university in the 1990's playing around with high end SGI's driving simulation systems.

Back then people talked about those problems too, even with systems getting 60FPS @ 640x480. I was a test subject for a number of studies being conducted and overwhelmingly it was an unpleasant experience. It was impossible to suspend disbelief because even tiny (I don't have the figures handy) frame lags, especially during rapid head movements were extremely noticeable, and gag inducing.

Mostly, I think people shelved the systems because the technology wasn't ready, the estimates back then IIRC was it would take a 4x resolution and 4x frame rate bump before it was worthwhile.

Both are probably possible, but the latency numbers are harder than it seems because of the fact that framerate != frame latency due to pipelining in the sensor and graphics systems. The resolution numbers are probably a matter of cost. LCD's providing 1080p in a couple inches are also probably significantly more expensive than the cost target needed to make these things mainstream.

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