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Oculus CEO says selling to Facebook convinced big developers to build for it

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Re: Oculus CEO says selling to Facebook convinced big developers to build for it

#11
Yes, a big corporation with big pockets means more money and stability but it comes at a cost. The cost being whatever you do must at the end of the day feed back into the pockets of your parent company. Twitter used to be a platform too but how many third party applications do you see now? A lot less than what it used to be. What do you think will happen to Oculus applications? Those that are sanctioned by Facebook will thrive and those that aren't will be brutally shut down.

At the end of the day this isn't good or bad. It is really more about long term disruptive technology and its viability outside giant dens like Facebook and Google. Looking around I don't see an ecosystem that can support such things without giant corporate backers and that is definitely not a good thing because at the end of the day the values of our corporate overlords tend to be slightly misaligned with that of the individual.

Re: Oculus CEO says selling to Facebook convinced big developers to build for it

#14

I mean, I hope things go well for them and their partnership brings nothing but good things. From what I've seen, they've put a lot of work in to their device and made significant gains. But Facebook doesn't and won't have a device in my life, and I refuse to buy an Occulus product because I don't believe that Facebook won't get access to usage data (or be involved as a platform middleman).

Seems like the first big company to wave cash in their face... Sold! -- what a pathetic sellout.

I, for one, will not have any device in my life which is associated with Facebook. If another big company had bought Oculus, I would feel different. I mean... Facebook has nothing to do with VR, gaming, etc. They obviously bought it in hopes of mining data one day.

Re: Oculus CEO says selling to Facebook convinced big developers to build for it

#15
post #2

I was one of the people disappointed with the acquisition.. but to be honest as long as they put out a decent bit of kit and I actually get to experience VR the way they're demoing it I'll be one happy dude

I thought it was an early April Fool's joke.

Cisco bought Flip for $590 million in 2009. By 2011 it was toast. While visionary for a moment, it wasn't perceptive enough to the impact of the smartphone.

There is a case to be made that Oculus needs large amounts of capital to procure the manufacture of a huge volumes of headsets. Unless explicit guarantees were part of the sale, Facebook could allocate the capital to something else. They are a public company and the bottom line is their companies performance, not the success or failure of Oculus.

Re: Oculus CEO says selling to Facebook convinced big developers to build for it

#16
post #5
post #2

I was one of the people disappointed with the acquisition.. but to be honest as long as they put out a decent bit of kit and I actually get to experience VR the way they're demoing it I'll be one happy dude

Looking forward to the Facebook App Store launch. What do you think its name will be?

Facebook Virtual Reality Platform with Realtime Social Communication for Facebook Certified Users (TM)

Re: Oculus CEO says selling to Facebook convinced big developers to build for it

#18
post #9

So he prefers rapid growth, with the risk of the whole thing becomming a bubble instead of the stability that results from a slow build of users and developer support? That doesn't put a lot of confidence in me either.

Those big name developers would have eventually started to develop if the technology kept advancing, though I would think many more might be hesitant now to even consider it now that it is owned by Facebook.

Re: Oculus CEO says selling to Facebook convinced big developers to build for it

#20
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking forward to the Facebook App Store launch. What do you think its name will be?

Facebook Virtual Reality Platform with Realtime Social Communication for Facebook Certified Users (TM)

Nono, this isn't Microsoft. It'll be something like Facebook Matrix Feed.
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