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Facebook's Price Tag For Oculus Actually $3 Billion, Zuckerberg Reveals in Court (cnbc.com)
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed in court testimony Tuesday that the company actually paid $3 billion to buy Oculus. From a report on CNBC: His testimony came in a Dallas courtroom, when game maker ZeniMax alleges that Oculus, bought by Facebook in 2014, stole the company's intellectual property. ZeniMax's attorney pressed Zuckerberg on the total Facebook paid for the company. Zuckerberg revealed that beyond the $2 billion price tag, that was widely reported, Facebook paid an additional $700 million to retain employees and another $300 million earnout for hitting key milestones. Nearly three years after Oculus' acquisition Zuckerberg defended against allegations that Oculus stole ZeniMax's intellectual property, also explaining his interest in VR and how it fits into his vision for Oculus.
Class action lawsuit time.
No, you fucking luddite
They lied to investors.
According to this http://www.recode.net/2016/3/24/11587234/two-years-later-facebooks-oculus-acquisition-has-changed-virtual Oculus had 75 employees when it was acquired. So, that $700 million to retain employees works out to a little under $10 million per employee for retention?!?!
I am really in the wrong industry...
There's Google cardboard thing that *only* requires you to strap your dorky phone to your face.
Quack, quack, quack!
figure 10 years down the road you can buy VR tickets to concerts, the superbowl and any other event with limited ticket supply. why pay $1000 to see some old and fat ass band from your childhood cause the scalpers bought all the tickets. buy it on VR and watch it at home from the same angle as front row seats
people i've talked to already prefer watching sports at home compared to watching it live, especially football. this is where VR will be good at
Well, we don't.
Oh... "face". I strapped them to my ASS and was upset when they threw me out the store!
Unless this was done just as a massive tax-writeoff, then I bet Zuckerberg is kicking himself for it now. There's no way Oculus is worth 3 billion now.
A string of over-greedy and shortsighted decisions by Oculus management (presumably the new people put in place by Zuckerberg after the purchase) totally devalued the product and company. Mostly thanks to marketing strategies such as drivers including always-on spying, making it a closed/DRM'd windows-only platform and store, and also totally underestimating the value of roomscale, In like 6 months Rift went from being the next big thing to a relatively dead duck compared to Steam/HTC Vive.
Of all the things to pick at, you're going to complain that the goggles are dorky?
* If you're using a high end VR solution (oculus, vive, playstation vr, gear), you're at home, and you'll rarely ever see the goggles cause you'l have them on or they'll be put away.
* If you're using a smartphone solution (cardboard, daydream), then:
a) you're probably at home, but if not...
b) you're probably just watching vr videos, which it is really great at doing, but if not...
c) you've got far bigger complaints you can make (underpowered, image drift, poor/no orientation support, controllers suck, etc)
Personally, I want what I consider to be two ends of the vr spectrum:
1. a simple 3d vr video player. I've tried loads of android apps, and none are perfect, but they all seem to do OK with various shortcomings, but it's all in the app that's the issue.
2. augmented reality stuff. I want a sort of assistant to do some facial recognition and label people. Mapping/gps integration would be nice too (and there are already a bunch of things out there that can do this, mostly for cycling or motorcycling).
Fully immersive games/activities/etc where you can move through an environment and interact with it might be neat, but I don't think it adds a whole lot, and it requires a significant setup to make the most of it. It's also the area that most of the companies are focused on, and I suspect that's because the hardware has a high profit margin right now, and AR stuff hit a HUGE wall when many in society reacted poorly to google glass.
You want full-vision, HD-or-above, miniature displays that are self-powered, wireless, and involve no glasses or anything else on you? And probably are selectively transparent?
Welcome to "bio-implants", using tech only available 50 years from now. When you can convince granny to do that to check her email, give us a shout.
Concerts, shows, amusement park rides, strip clubs.
lol I'd never pay for that
captcha: sanest
Inviting loss leader for market shift that happens anyways.
By that time, I am sure camera technology will be such that the VR audience will get views that not even the front row seat holders get. I am thinking body mounted cameras, lots of 360 camera placements and drones.
If done right, you won't even miss the energy of the crowd because you will be as good as there with them.... which then begs the question: Will anyone still want to physically go to these events?
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
You should invest heavily in VR. It will most definitely pay off. I mean, all your friends are cool, and they think it's cool too!
Sure... When you decide to get off your lazy ass and invent it.
If done right, you won't even miss the energy of the crowd because you will be as good as there with them....
Sure, if you're fine with a crowd that consists of NPCs.
Will anyone still want to physically go to these events?
Yes. It might be difficult to understand, but some people might go to these events mostly because of other people going to these events.
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
What,because your the font of all knowledge.
VR is the latest con job to part over moneyed fools from their stolen money.
It will ALWAYS be a tiny part of the media market,vr will quickly go the way of 3d television,for industry vr/ar has a possible long term economic argument,for the home market,none.
How many "smart" watches have you bought ?
Decent vr technology is still years away,people are stupidly buying rubbish systems that barely work,not one of them works well,none are really mass market ready,but there are enough fools with stolen money willing to invest in frauds and enough other fools to buy crud systems that others can profit from to make it worth while spinning out that the tech is market ready when in fact it's another ten years away from being any good..
No wonder Ole' Zuckey is so so desperate to milk every bit of personal information he can from Oculus.
I wondered what the long face was about.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
>>53683555
quote>
Oh... "face". I strapped them to my ASS and was upset when they threw me out the store!
Nice trips. Praise Kek!
> why pay $1000 to see some old and fat ass band from your childhood
Two of the most expensive shows I've ever gone to were festivals that cost under $300. At one of these festivals, I managed to have a brief conversation with my favorite all time singer. At the other, I ended up played poker with my favorite guitarist. And that's just the frosting on top of the cake of the overall musical experience. People-watching, helping the guy who lost his shoe in the crowd, etc. I'll take all that over a hyper-slickly produced VR thing where I can - what, view the stage from a handful of angles?
VR will always be more V than R.
Already there. It's called going outside.
I heard about a VR game called, "I'm a fudgesicle" that doesn't require goggles.
I don't think anything can replace getting drunk and singing and dancing with strangers at a concert of a band you both love
...may beat Oculus Rift in the market. It may not be as advanced as some of the other VR headsets out there, but it's supposed to run on cheaper harder and it's good enough for the major use-case of the damn things: sitting at a desk and interacting with stuff.
Why does it have to be NPCs? Use that noggin to stretch your thinking a little, it's too myoptic. See Hololens showing off such tech already, predict how it'll improve in 10 years. Where are all the nerds these days!?
Omg and man will never fly. Seriously seems like a bunch of visionless luddites are all that is left on /.
If you're suggesting people meeting up in VR (using their avatars or whatever), then still no. Yes, interesting, but no, not the real thing. There's something to human-human interaction that you simply cannot reproduce with VR that's less advanced as what they have in the Matrix.
Think of a party. (I know, we're on slashdot, so just pretend you have ever been to one). Sure I could (if the technology was there) simply stay at home, meet up with my VR buddies on a VR dancefloor, tune the VR to try and reproduce the effects of whatever drugs seem appropriate and Have A Good Night. Will it be able to produce the same hot, sweaty atmosphere, will it properly recreate the feeling (not to mention the sound) of a row of 18" subwoofers? Will I be able to hit on that cute girl over there?
Talk about myopic(sic).
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
Facebook has had four years to develop Facebook 2.0 VR experience. When the VR technology becomes widely available which is quite soon then Facebook already has a working ecosystem of social media VR services. Facebook is an advertisement company and it doesn't have to make money selling the Oculus. It sells ads on Facebook VR.
You have no clue. But don't feel bad just because you can't afford expensive toys, you probably wouldn't enjoy them anyway. Right?