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Facebook Buying Oculus VR For $2 Billion
Several readers sent word that Facebook will acquire Oculus VR for $2 billion. Mark Zuckerberg says the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset is the beginning of something big: "This is really a new communication platform. By feeling truly present, you can share unbounded spaces and experiences with the people in your life. Imagine sharing not just moments with your friends online, but entire experiences and adventures." The obvious question is: why Facebook would buy a company focused on VR gaming? The Oculus team says, "But when you consider it more carefully, we're culturally aligned with a focus on innovating and hiring the best and brightest; we believe communication drives new platforms; we want to contribute to a more open, connected world; and we both see virtual reality as the next step. ... It opens doors to new opportunities and partnerships, reduces risk on the manufacturing and work capital side, allows us to publish more made-for-VR content, and lets us focus on what we do best: solving hard engineering challenges and delivering the future of VR." Put more simply: money and connections.
I view it more as Facebook has just killed promising technology.
If Zuckerfuck owns it, I want nothing to do with it.
Agreed. This news just completely killed my interest in the Rift.
And the masses cried out, "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0!"
I am one of the original Oculus Kickstarter backers. I have received my Rift development kit without any problem, so I think you are grossly unfair to Oculus as far as the Kickstarter campaign is concerned. The perks were the development kits, not company shares, so there is no reason why I should be getting a cut of those 2 billions.
Also, honestly, do you really believe the company is operating on the Kickstarter money? You would be naive - there are several large investors there, the Kickstarter money went mainly into the original development kit.
However, I do wonder what the heck is going to happen now. They better tread really carefully or they could alienate many of their customers and developers in no time if they try to aggressively push Facebook everywhere (like the payment system - seriously, if one of the stated reasons for getting acquired was to get access to the Facebook's payment system, that's nuts).