they could have been a competitor to apple, google and facebook if they had gone it alone.
Minecraft creator says he’s canceled talks for Oculus Rift version
221–230 of 369 posts
Re: Minecraft creator says he’s canceled talks for Oculus Rift version
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem with grokking Facebook's involvement is the lack of any apparent connection between VR and FB's core competencies. Google at least can use Glass for ever-more data mining. VR? FB? Carmack can sure put the $2B to good use, but how it benefits FB nobody seems to know.
What's funny is that everyone would breathe a giant sigh of relief if, when asked about the deal, Zuckerberg just grinned boyishly and said, "It's a VR company run by Carmack, and I'm a multibillionaire. Of course I wanted to own it."
Maybe; but Zuckerberg didn't buy the company, Facebook did.
Re: Minecraft creator says he’s canceled talks for Oculus Rift version
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
If Oculus's plan all along was to create a giant MMO powered by Rift headsets, then this is the first I've heard of it. Interesting. I think a bunch of smaller apps created by developers has a better chance of being successful. EDIT: By "giant MMO" I mean "metaverse from Snowcrash," not "video game."
Well Second Life is instructive here, I felt they ran into scaling problems. You could also consider Eve's non-sharded world - OK Eve is a game, but a sufficiently complex and elaborate one as to be a good proxy for an immersive virtual environment. I don't know exactly what Oculus's plan was but it'd be foolish to ignore this obvious application, and that certainly seems to be where Mark Zuckerberg sees the value in…
After thinking about this some more, I think it's going to come down to: "Can they make their Metaverse cool?"
Zuck probably has some tricks up his sleeve to accomplish this goal. And he's been able to learn from G+ about how not to go about it.
Whether the Metaverse is cool will make or break its popularity. It's what made Facebook's.
The coming years are going to be pretty interesting.
Re: Minecraft creator says he’s canceled talks for Oculus Rift version
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yay! Now I can have a unit for $70... so long as I finally sign up to Facebook to be able to use it! Uh. I think I'd rather pay $1000 than do that.
I would rather pay $70 and signin with Facebook than paying $1000.
That just shifts $930 to hidden costs. Someone pays either way.
Re: Minecraft creator says he’s canceled talks for Oculus Rift version
#225> "Facebook creeps me out." Whether or not you agree with his decision, having Notch pull away from talks with you creates an instant credibility "situation". It's also noteable that Notch had been meeting with the Oculus team just two weeks ago[0], was tweeting about them in rather gushing terms[1] and seemed incredibly inspired to work on VR ideas[2]. He is now the personification of the a near universal feeling of…
Heh, from Carmack's twitter 1m ago: https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/448629403740692481 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. Glad to see Carmack is still being Carmack. EDIT: By the way, if anyone is wondering why people are having a negative reaction to this Facebook deal, I think one way to understand it…
"The FB deal" is likely an intentional euphemism intended to suggest its a partnership.
This is not a "deal". Facebook will own the company and can (rightfully) be expected to do whatever they want with it.
Re: Minecraft creator says he’s canceled talks for Oculus Rift version
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry if I'm not completely convinced by your half-sentence dismissals of those incredibly multifaceted organizations you listed.
I doubt the sincerity of your apology. But if you really desire more convincing, all of those companies have large existing business units devoted to selling consumer devices or licensing things to people selling consumer devices. Those business units have executives, budgets, reporting structures, etc. It is very unlikely any of those companies would buy Oculus to run it as an autonomous unit, like Facebook is sayin…
Apple does not have business units. Apple would also never spend that much money on an acquisition, so your general point stands, but your specific statement is false.
Re: Minecraft creator says he’s canceled talks for Oculus Rift version
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
The "scale" JC is referring to is not hardware production. It's the virtual reality. Millions of people interacting in real time in a virtual universe in which they are actually present . Think of it as similar to the scaling challenges of MMORPGs. Only much worse.
It is both; FB makes a shit-ton of HW with their open-cmpute platform.... They have a lot of XP in building real physical shit these days. Scaling traffic is a non-issue for them.
A consumer product like the Rift is an entirely different proposition with an entirely different set of challenges. The Open Compute project was essentially Facebook giving away some of their data center designs and specifications (mostly things like server racks and power management), with a few other companies joining the initiative but with none of the designs actually being used on a significant scale.
Also worth noting, the head of OCP left Facebook today. http://www.pcworld.com/article/2111680/open-compute-project-...
Re: Minecraft creator says he’s canceled talks for Oculus Rift version
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
> scaling crisis for VR. That's supposing Facebook knows how to scale production of electronic items... apart from the cash, they have no relevant experience about that. If it had been Google or Microsoft there would already be people who know how to make it scale to mass production.
Facebook has the buying power to put together a solid hardware production team. I don't think Google has much internal hardware production knowledge right now, aside from the knowledge they bought when they acquired Motorola. Before that, they mostly made things through hardware partners like HTC, Samsung, and LG. I think they produce the Chromecast internally, but it's not much fancier than a USB stick. I'm sure the…
You're leaving out Glass, Fiber, Nest, Chromebook, and the 8 robotics companies they just acquired, among other things.
Re: Minecraft creator says he’s canceled talks for Oculus Rift version
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
In a similar capacity, the B&MGF/IV have a laser that blasts mosquitoes out of the air. However despite it actually existing , it would be perfectly reasonable to refer to it as vapor ware at this point. You'd even be excused for asserting that it was just a PR stunt and funding sink.
Your comment is irrelevant. My point is that Google is "trying to foray into other ventures" (my exact words). I never claimed self-driving cars are available to consumers right now.
You seem to be completely failing to understand o0-0o's objection.
Your example of another Google "venture" is, at this point, vaporware. Now we are told that Facebook is moving into a new "venture"? Why are we to believe that this will be any less vaporware? The only thing that matters to us, the potential consumer, is if they can ship. Everything else is irrelevant.
Re: Minecraft creator says he’s canceled talks for Oculus Rift version
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
> scaling crisis for VR. That's supposing Facebook knows how to scale production of electronic items... apart from the cash, they have no relevant experience about that. If it had been Google or Microsoft there would already be people who know how to make it scale to mass production.
The "scale" JC is referring to is not hardware production. It's the virtual reality. Millions of people interacting in real time in a virtual universe in which they are actually present . Think of it as similar to the scaling challenges of MMORPGs. Only much worse.
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