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Facebook acquires Oculus VR

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Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#801

Post by chillingeffect »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #744
chillingeffect wrote: post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hell, you think us neck-beards are taking it hard? The tweens on /v/ are threatening suicide and asking each other "where were you when video gaming died?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgmyw0yqPPE This is it /v/. I'm killing myself. No, I'm not an attention whore, I will be killing myself now. Facebook fucking ruined everything. Everything I was looking forward to in life is now gone because of corporate greed. We…

Wait, don't kill yourself, we can fix this. The release of Oculus will result in a halo effect around VR-quality hardware in the electronics market. This will make it much easier to create OpenVR (open hardware, no corporate control). Oculus have dropped the ball, but we can still fulfil the vision you dream of. Wouldn't it be better to turn your frustration into a creative force?

Just to clarify, I was quoting a message board. I'm not personally intending to do anything ridiculous like that... especially not over a VR helmet.

I have seen waves of VR come and go. I'm not under the impression that Oculus Rift is much better than others.

IMO, the dreams of VR were not about helmets, but about 3-d graphics. 3d is here now and it's having its effect. Helmets are a niche product.

I think Jeri Ellsworth's CastAR will be stronger product.

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#803

Post by debacle »

digitalzombie wrote: post #666
debacle wrote: post #335

You guys need to relax a little bit. Have a little faith in Carmack.

I had faith in Will Wright and Spore. You know what happen? EA happened.

No, see, there's you're problem. History has proven that Will Wright always underdelivers on anything he hypes up. The guy that designs The Sims is not going to design a realistic evolution simulator.

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#804

Post by jaegerpicker »

pfraze wrote: post #299
s3r3nity wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> bottom-of-the-ethical-barrel Again, this is silly sensationalist thinking -- companies aren't people capable of "good" or "evil" choices. If they were, I'd note that Facebook was one of the only companies NOT conspiring to deflate the wages of half of the people that visit this site. (Note: I don't work for FB -- I just rail against silly hyperbolic thinking.)

I normally agree with you, but I really believe Facebook's model - hosting people's personal life in a corporate database - is wrong, flatly wrong. It'd be wrong for anybody, but they're the most active pushers. Friend lists, personal photos, relationships, messages, even though users gave them up freely, it was wrong to take them. IT ethics means that you use your expertise to actively protect sensitive information.…

While I tend to agree with your ethical stand point, I think it's unfair to blame them for not pushing a self hosting platform. Without first gathering the personal info of the users they would never had the clout to push anything. They had to obtain a large level of popularity in order to push anything.

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#805

Post by pfraze »

jaegerpicker wrote: post #804
pfraze wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I normally agree with you, but I really believe Facebook's model - hosting people's personal life in a corporate database - is wrong, flatly wrong. It'd be wrong for anybody, but they're the most active pushers. Friend lists, personal photos, relationships, messages, even though users gave them up freely, it was wrong to take them. IT ethics means that you use your expertise to actively protect sensitive information.…

While I tend to agree with your ethical stand point, I think it's unfair to blame them for not pushing a self hosting platform. Without first gathering the personal info of the users they would never had the clout to push anything. They had to obtain a large level of popularity in order to push anything.

That's a fair point - think of all the attempts to displace them (cough diaspora). But that's also why the onus falls onto them now, right?

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#806

Post by exodust »

fmax30 wrote: post #704
exodust wrote: post #647

I'm surprised people even think Oculus Rift will catch on beyond the early adopters. It's just another 3D TV technology - sounds cool, is cool, but not in a long term way. Nobody cares much about 3D TV anymore because in practice it wasn't all it cracked up to be. It was hype. When you strap a display to your head and replace your mouse with your own neck muscles, suddenly you are more limited than before. You can't…

Hmm , they could have added two frontal camera to it , so that when you paused a game or just wanted to think or have time for your self. you could just press a button and the on screen display would start displaying what ever was in front of you.

Hah... yes good idea. But the screens should instead or in addition, flip up or fold out of the way for normal sight, while still keeping the headset on.

It will be a special occasion thing for mainstream Facebookers, and people in general. People like their "secondary things" too much I think. Those things we miss if they're not within reach -

- sipping a beer - patting your cat - talking to someone in the room - Seeing with your own eyes - glancing at TV in corner of room - people watching/ people in your house watching - checking phone messages - looking at different distances to give your eyes a break. - multi-tasking - heaps of other things we do while using normal screens. VR makes it hard to continue doing those things in parallel.

Basically, these VR toys need to be flickable with very little effort, to get them off your face real quick! 2 billion. Funny.

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#807

Post by virgil_disgr4ce »

bradgessler wrote: post #579
froo wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oculus is not a service, just a technology; one that has no relation (nor clear route to one) to any Facebook-held product. Exactly. This is what diversification is all about. At it's core, Facebook is now a public technology company, which means that creating value for its shareholders is it's primary focus. Buying something that looks like it might be a big deal before it becomes a big deal is doing that. Killing…

I think most of us really wanted Oculus to be an insanely great technology, not Facebook's "diversification strategy".

Well... those are not mutually exclusive, as far as I can tell.

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#808

Post by gcb0 »

I loath valve because it made drm and always online cool.

But this is worse. Will we have farmvilleVR only now? Either way, they're now in position to make further drm on oculus games, such as Facebook login only.

But seeing that Sony added a share button on their controller this is probably the inevitable future anyway...

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#809

Post by giarc »

efuquen wrote: post #620
giarc wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Star rising vs star risen. WhatsApp was already a star. It had millions of users and was the "go to" app for communication in many countries. We forget that here in NA. Oculus, as cool as it is, still doesn't have a huge customer/user database.

I don't see how you're really addressing the point, the idea is that Occulus Rift's star risen would be way way more valuable then WhatsApp ever could hope to be. We all know they still have a journey in front of them, but the idea is they could have kept going on their own, and you know, had a star risen moment vs getting acquired before a general consumer product was released. But, you get a couple hundred million…

I tend to disagree. Facebook is worth billions and they created a business of sharing photos and status updates. WhatsApp allows you to do this as well, but on the mobile platform that has escaped Facebook's grasp. WhatsApp is a hugely successful piece of software that fits within Facebooks portfolio very nicely. It also doesn't come with huge overhead, something like 20 engineers keep WhatsApp running. You don't have to speculate that WhatsApp (and it's 1/2 billion user base) is worth money.

On the other hand you have a hardware startup with no customers and an unproven product. Sure they have sold a bunch of dev kit's, but those are far from being ready for the consumer market. In addition to not having a customers, they have Sony building a similar product and remember that Sony already has hardware in millions of homes and therefore roll out would be much easier. Occulus might build a great product, but competition is going to be much harder given Sony's pursuit. I would argue that Occulus has proven to be an innovative and smart company, but in no means have they proven to be a successful business and therefore their "star has not risen" just yet. Speculation on future value is much harder with Occulus and has too many "ifs" and therefore, currently, Occulus is not worth anything close to the $19B paid for WhatsApp.

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus VR

#810

Post by matteyes »

72deluxe wrote: post #718
jmspring wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Facebook is an engineering company" Keep telling yourself that. They've released some interesting tech, yes, but an engineering company? No. Neither is google.

They're software companies. Some people don't see writing software as engineering. I write software daily and I wouldn't call myself an engineer. The guys I work with who design electrical circuitry and my dad who worked on engine mountings and vehicle components - I would call them engineers. Perhaps Google and Facebook should be software companies with an advertising edge?

Facebook is an advertising company with a software edge. They make something like 90% of their money selling media space. The Facebook "product" is, now, nearly indistinguishable from a marketing gimmick. The real product is the users, access to which they sell for their profits.
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