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Facebook acquires Oculus VR

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Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#561

Post by infinitone »

jusben1369 wrote: post #507
pinaceae wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

right, that's why pure software companies now need to get into hardware, just like, erm, who exactly? do they want to be the next apple? hardware is such a different skill and mindset than software, it's not even funny.

I don't understand your point. Were you railing on Google when they bought Nest?

I think its about the fact that very few software companies can simply birth a hardware engineering division like Google. Its arguable that even Google struggles with it at times.

For a software-oriented company such as Facebook and a fairly new one and not the greatest on the balance sheet, its undoubtedly much harder for them to enter the hardware space than Google.

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#562

Post by s3r3nity »

debt wrote: post #399
hack_edu wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but Instagram and Parse are services that fall within Facebook's major product area and have teams with related experience to Facebook's daily operations. Oculus is not a service, just a technology; one that has no relation (nor clear route to one) to any Facebook-held product.

I believe this acquisition was also a play to acquire more engineering talent. Through this acquisition they acquired John Carmack which is a fairly famous engineer amongst the tech community. That component alone strikes me as an incredibly awesome PR move in terms of recruitment. As far as I'm concerned Facebook is the only competitor to Google at this point. Facebook is just trying to keep pace. I assume they're g…

>Facebook is the only competitor to Google at this point

I wouldn't discount some of the recent moves my Microsoft and its new CEO -- they seem like they're moving fast and trying to become the old MSFT we used to love (or at least I used to.)

Never count Bing out of the fight =)

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#563

Post by 31reasons »

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 believe Palmer Luckey will regret this decision.

Absolutely. He has lost all credibility he had gained with such a cult following. I don't think he would be able to repeat it with the gamers and supporters again.

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#564

Post by deletes »

andrewjanke wrote: post #515
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…

Very interesting theory. Anybody have a link to an actual source for Carmack's interest in virtual "worlds" instead of just games? Everything I've found from searching is talking about Oculus' Palmer Luckey, not Carmack, wanting to do that, and it specifically name-checks the Metaverse. (e.g. http://spectrum.ieee.org/consumer-electronics/gaming/oculus-... ). There's a lot of Google hits for "Carmack Metaverse" but th…

His ultimate goal is to make the holodeck.

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#565

Post by DonGateley »

skymt wrote: post #115
Sindrome wrote: post #25

OcculusVR is dead. Can someone make a new Oculus VR that focuses on video games and not enabling Facebook to control everything you see. Get on it.

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.

People who have had the opportunity to see both the DK2 and the Morpheus have almost all thought the Morpheus a better device. I think Luckey et. al. saw the handwriting on the wall and sold for the best deal they could while they still could into a market where they won't need to compete with Sony, MS, and Google directly.

They have no magic and they know it. Sony will trounce them technologically. Not getting to market before Sony is a fatal shortfall. I think they knew all along that they'd fall short going toe to toe with the big guns. There is something about Luckey that has always said huckster to me.

On the other hand, games are but the miniscule tip of the tip of the VR iceberg and the new placement with respect to the larger market could benefit grownups like me why could give a rat's a about games and social but see endless passive entertainment possibilities. Of course, Sony is there to beat in those domains as well.

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#566

Post by lispython »

Here is John Carmack's response from twitter:

> For the record, I am coding right now, just like I was last week.I expect the FB deal will avoid several embarrassing scaling crisis for VR.

> I can't follow the volume of tweets today, so if you want a real answer to something, try in a couple days after things die down.

> I have a deep respect for the technical scale that FB operates at. The cyberspace we want for VR will be at this scale.

> I suppose I will get a FB account now, so that may lead to some writing a little longer than tweet length...

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#568

Post by OWaz »

DonGateley wrote: post #565
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.

People who have had the opportunity to see both the DK2 and the Morpheus have almost all thought the Morpheus a better device. I think Luckey et. al. saw the handwriting on the wall and sold for the best deal they could while they still could into a market where they won't need to compete with Sony, MS, and Google directly. They have no magic and they know it. Sony will trounce them technologically. Not getting to ma…

>"People who have had the opportunity to see both the DK2 and the Morpheus have almost all thought the Morpheus a better device."

Do you have any reputable links to support this?

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#569

Post by foobarqux »

yid wrote: post #261
s3r3nity wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

> They (Oculus) now have many many more times the resources at their disposal than before to make countless imaginative projects. An acquisition into a company like Facebook is not quite carte blanche to chase "countless imaginative projects". There are VPs and PMs, budgets and headcount, inter-departmental politics and of course final approval from Sheryl Sandberg, David Ebersman and Zuck. No matter what the press r…

The rumour was the Sandberg wasn't consulted when Instagram was acquired. I wonder if she was consulted for these recent acquisitions.

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#570

Post by bunkat »

grkvlt wrote: post #446
kybernetyk wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is sad because in the end Facebook is all about showing ads to people who don't want to see them.

Rather the opposite - Facebook want to show adverts only to the people who want to see them. Anything else is just stupid, why on earth would anyone pay to advertise to people who don't want to see my adverts?

Does anybody actually like seeing ads when they are browsing around Facebook? Who thinks to themselves 'I feel like buying something, let's log in to Facebook and maybe a random ad will come up for something that I want'. If people want to spend money, don't they just search for it or hit up Amazon? I wonder, if given the option to show adverts when you first sign up - how many people would select it?
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