Facebook to buy Oculus Created 10 years ago2014-03-25 23:22:52 UTC by Tetsu0

http://time.com/37842/facebook-oculus-rift/

What the hell facebook... I don't want Farmville 3D.. or do i?

No, you don't.

I hope for Facebook to burn in hell.

I was really (though quietly) excited for the consumer model ever since I got a chance to try out a devkit.
Now I'm worried that it'll require you to connect to your facebook account to use and contain all sorts of tracking devices.

I doubt all these crazy theories about the Rift will come to pass. More than likely, we'll get a much cheaper product that's far better built than the developers originally anticipated. More so, there won't be any mandatory Facebook login junk, because that would just be incredibly bad PR. Facebook will no doubt leverage the tech for their own rubbish, though.

The issue I have with this is that any money I want to throw at the Oculus now becomes part of Facebook's income. Facebook is a company where I want to minimise any financial expenditure on my behalf as much as possible. I don't particularly like what they stand for, nor how they conduct their business.

I don't suspect VR will catch on very well anyway. I don't mean Virtual Boy level of not catching on, just not nearly as much as more established platforms.

No no no no no no no no no no, why the f*ck does facebook need VR ?
Great i was planing to dump some cash on the consumer model now tis going to have fb stamps all over it.
Or should i get DK2 ?

Though the Rift has been pitched as a video gaming device, Facebook plans to use its technology for communications, media and other forms of entertainment

Zuckerberg said he could envision people visiting virtual worlds where they can buy goods and are served advertisements

Well, I was heavily interested in the Rift. Now, possibly not so much.
If the focus shifts entirely to that stuff then my interest will become zero.

Valve should have just bought them, that's their thing.

I really hope i get to try it before everything goes to sh*t

If John Carmack is calm, its all good

Why couldn't Zenimax or Id bought them ?

Im surprised John didn't oppose this, he is the one that would see where this would derail after the fb deal.

Or Valve.
Valve would have been a good company to purchase the rift. But 2 Billion dollars... I'm not sure they have that kind of money to toss around.

Facebook buying Oculus is like a wheatly put as the president of the world. Something will go bad.

In a way Facebook could be the best thing to happen to VR. They have the leverage and exposure to mainstream VR more than any single game company.

Let's let Facebook do all of the VR-industry grunt work. Let them define standards, and do all of the positioning work to push VR to multiple industries and platforms. They will use their vast network of influence to drive VR to as many places as they can.

Once Facebook has proven VR as a financially viable industry, and there is wide support for VR, it's only a matter of time until competitor VR sets spring up. We won't have to deal with Facebook if we don't want to. In a way, they will make it easier for a competitor to enter the market. They won't have to create the VR industry from scratch like Rift is doing. VR support will be in so many places that they are just creating a VR set and not a whole market.

Edit: As long as these responses aren't outright lies, my predictions here are correct! Check out this collection of responses on Kotaku. We will get the mainstream exposure of VR, but without the facebook-overlord drawbacks.

They bought the Oculus for 2 billion...

They could have easily purchased several small island countries for that amount.

They also purchased a near-useless application for 8 times that amount.
Not sure how they got so much money, to be honest.

They're not selling the users anything, so what's left? They're selling the users. You've given them all that personal and unique individually identifying information all other sites try to forcefully extract from you. More than they could ever wish for. And there's plenty of people willing to pay top dollar for that. I really can't understand what they could want it for, but I don't have the malice large corporations are known for.

So yeah, that's where they get all that money.

Keep in mind that the deal was for $400 million in cash, and $1.6 billion in Facebook stock. The valuation of Oculus at $400 million seems about right to me. Stock is hardly a hard currency, remember.

Yeah... every company keeps a few hundred millions in cash stashed in a drawer just in case they need to buy someone else.

Like and share button guaranteed.

Yeah... every company keeps a few hundred millions in cash stashed in a drawer just in case they need to buy someone else.

Every huge multinational company probably does.

So yeah, that's where they get all that money.

Ad revenue finances basically every company that offers a service that isn't paid for by the consumer.

I'm just surprised that they've managed to actually get so much money stored up from the ad revenue. They must have huge profit margins.

Facebook stock is badly overvalued. That doesn't matter though since 1.6 billion in overvalued soft currency is a lot of partial ownership (probably not as much as some of the larger players), or if sold, a lot of money. For facebook right now it's $61.02 per stock. It's been trending up constantly for a long time and if the trends continue, it could double in the next 5 years to a projected 107 per stock. Even they sell their stocks (stupid move) next year, they would make $192 million. An investment like this could be a huge long term financial boost in the millions.

I seriously wish I had the money to get some facebook stock. Now would be the time to invest since we KNOW they have their hands on some new and innovative technology. Unless they sub-branch and make a offshoot tech company for their R&D. Then get stock in that instead.

I don't see why this is such a bad thing.

Would you rather EA Games have control of Oculus Rift, so they can sell it for an overpriced amount and tag it to work only Origin?

Pretty much every GAMES STUDIO (besides Valve) doesn't have half as healthy a track record as Facebook. When Facebook takes control of things, they don't really tamper with it that much. There are far worse people who could take control of things, and the developers of Facebook aren't stupid. They've stated that they still want to design the things for games, and I, personally, still want to have hope that the Oculus Rift will be a part of the future.

No Dimbar, Oculus wont be the only one making VR g lasses.

I rather it had sold to anyone but fb and google.
I really hate when companies branch out to fields where they should not belong according to on how they started, that is google is only and will always be just a search engine and fb will always just be a social network, not a bloody robotics firm or virtual reality manufacturer.

Even if it dies, it opened a huge market for others to participate. And others should participate for faster technology development and lower prices.

I'm just surprised that they've managed to actually get so much money stored up from the ad revenue. They must have huge profit margins.

I read somewhere that they earned roughly 1.6 billion usd last year from ads. Together with, as Rimrook said, paying some costs with (highly valuated) stocks means they have some money to throw around.

@Rufee: Nintendo started with toys and Hanafuda cards. They were nearly bankrupt when they jumped onto the popularity of gaming electronics in 1974. We all know how they turned out.

If I know one thing, it's that Zuckerberg isn't an idiot. I doubt that the Oculus is going to die and become crap because of him.

@Rim: but they switched, does Nintendo still make toys ?

I dunno, as fads go, Facebook should be falling in popularity soon.

It will be the same, when PopCapGames was bought by EA games. Ads everywhere and half of the game must be bought for real money. It's like you buy HL1 but you only get 1 gun. You must buy the rest for money. THAT will happen.

This already exists - LoL.
Well we are going to sell you a rift, but stereo vision is optional.

@Rufee
Technically no unless you count their merchandising.

If facebook got into gaming, it would branch rather than switch focuses.

You do realize that Facebook already is into gaming?

They've practically cornered the market on browser-based games, with their only competitor being Zynga. They already have control over a larger amount of the gaming market than you may think.

Facebook allowing games to utilize their social network, sure. When I think Angry Birds, Bejewled, Candy Crush, etc, I don't directly associate them with Facebook. If they started directly funding and producing games then I will count them in the market for it. If they do, I terribly curious what they would do.

Just because Facebook doesn't develop triple-A titles doesn't mean that their hardware is going to be bad.

The people over at Oculus Rift didn't develop games for the thing. They just gave away devkits to let OTHER people make the games for them. And as long as Facebook continues this, then it'll probably turn out alright.

Let's hope you are right... I really hope you are right... *hides in the dark

Dimbark has a point. They may just hold onto things the way they are. I can't imagine having something like that and not doing more with it though. Almost wasteful...

Overall, I wish them the best.

It's certainly a case of wait and see. Too many people are jumping the gun with their emotional response to Facebook. I am no fan of Facebook, but I do not think it wise to condemn Oculus before they've had a chance to do anything.

Well now that the rage died down, I actually think this is the best thing that could have happened apart from them staying independant, immagine if someone like microsoft gotten hold of them then we would probably never see vr for 5 more years. They were dedicated to the cause to bring vr as fast as possible and not skipping on th e quality too facebook if they say they are going to leave oculus on their own for now makes this a very good deal for everyone, we get good vr headsets without fb branding and they can continue to improve the experience. The best fuse inside oculus right now is Carmack, when something goes wrong you can expect he wont be happy with that and bells will start ringing, so as long as the father of all 3D is ok with this acquisition so am i.