All my friends just yelled NOOOOOOOOOOOOO a thousand times over.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/facebook-buys-virtual-reality-oculus-2b-23057463

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umDr0mPuyQc

I wonder if they did it because SONY announced their competitor and they figured they needed an industry giant to back them to beat them to the punch.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

If I had pre-ordered the thing and found out about this, I would be cancelling said pre-order.

I have no faith in Facebook as a company and do not want to support them or anything they do at any step of the way.

Call me old style but I think VR headsets will be a fad, just like 3D TV's were. I think a normal screen is still the most comfortable way for using a computer or TV. So, I'm not worried at all, really.

Cue the FB-hating bandwagon and the hate on the acquisition that follows.

Excited to see the direction the Rift goes with such high caliber support.

Isn't Valve also making something similar? They can take my money any day.

Well, the Oculus SHOULD be benefitting from a solid support...but Facebook? I simply fail to see this as something "right", at least from the gamer point of view.

I know I am oldschool, and I concur fully.

Pop up adverts that you can't click-away or even turn-away from. Great...

Video ads that cover your vision, that auto play, and you can't stop.

https://twitter.com/notch/status/448586381565390848

https://support.oculusvr.com/hc/en-us/articles/201721253-Order-Cancellation-and-Refund-Policy

Notch made a good point about Facebook not having a clear business strategy. You can't be sure what they're going to do, or what they're about, so it's not smart to trust them flat out.

For example, everyone knows Microsoft. They make office products, operating systems, focusing on productivity (minus the last bombshell of Metro). They also make a game system. They're not gonna change their mind one day and start selling canned tuna and messing with your tuna business. They're not FOSS friendly. We know that.

This news made me go out and pre-order three of them.

You should have just gone to eBay.

I wonder if my mom would be interested in playing a virtual reality version of Farmville?

The only ones for sale right now are the demo units that only do 720p, and make you sick The newer 1080p units are much better. And they are only pre-orderable atm afaik.

I believe that's only if you physically move around--as opposed to turning your head. That's why they added head position tracking in the future models. But if you sit there like a normal human being it shouldn't freak out.

Except maybe the refresh rate. I don't know if they had to up that between gens.

Didn't you guys know that Onewing is responsible for all this? Let's wait for him to explain his actions....

The Rift is a controller/monitor. Do you people believe they're going to add networking to deliver adds?

People complaining about the acquisition are spouting a bunch of nonsense. All it does is give Oculus VR an effectively unlimited bankroll. The only thing this may effect is the games and applications Oculus VR make which use the Rift. The Rift is to remain an open controller/monitor thing.

The low-persistance of the DK2 eliminates the blur when you turn your head. This blur made many sick in the DK1. Moving around is still effectively the same, except DK2 can do it better using a camera and IR leds instead of relying solely on sensor values. Of course, that means DK2 can't track your position once you turn around.

Don't straw man me. I never said anything about networking or ads.

It doesn't have... both?

I just ordered another one.

Sorry, I wasn't referring to your comments specifically. More all comments in the thread as well as general consensus. I can see how placement of my post could lead to misinterpretation.

The DK2 has low persistence on the video component, as well as IR leds with a camera to track your position. It still has the sensors (accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer) but those are near useless for positional tracking. The leds, however, are only on the front of the device, meaning if you aren't pointed toward the camera, positional tracking will not work (orientation will still be reported correctly).

Low persistence is a key feature to eliminate motion blur, which will aid in a number of motion sickness cases. Positional tracking also likely helps some, but I haven't personally collected any data on that yet, so I can't give an educated opinion. Mostly, positional tracking is just useful as an immersion factor.

I wouldn't have lost my hope for the device if I hadn't seen Palmer Luckey's reddit post. If he is willing to whore out his personal account to PR flacks, there goes any hope of retaining integrity in the face (no pun intended) of Facebook.

I'm just waiting for the project to get canned. I give it a few months before facebook gets bored with it and starts expecting real progress reports and some kind of income from it.

Tis what happens with these big buyouts.

I wonder how things will go when Facebook starts putting on the pressure. Because that's what seems like always happens. Every big company says "We won't mess with you." and then year by year, they don't line up with the expectations of old businessmen and the screws get tightened.

Remember Winamp? Remember it was king of the hill by time AOL bought it? And then splat.

On a somewhat related note, I never realized John Carmack left id specifically because their new corporate owner, Zenimax refused to back VR technology when he asked them to. He left for CTO of Oculus Rift.

That's a pretty big deal. Leaving a software company he founded 23 years ago that held the credits of revolutionizing the computer industry.

So I really wonder what John Carmack thinks of the matter (obviously he's under an NDA right now.)

Also, this reddit comment is pure gold.

The thing I don't understand about that line of reasoning is the Rift is just a controller. How does a controller have any integrity? As long as the device remains what it is, does having a different parent company somehow diminish what it does?

If anything, backing of a large corporation is imperative to the device's success. Like it or not, the Rift wasn't going to be supported in anything but a few indy titles. It just doesn't make financial sense to build support for it into large games when no one has one, and no one is going to buy one if it isn't in large games. The device is hard to market inherently (you don't know why it is awesome until you try it in person).
Having a company like Facebook behind it probably will move the company to flesh out a few casual or social games for it. That is a good thing. Casual/social games are how you get this thing into the hands of the masses. If everyone has one, games everywhere will support it, including the type I'd want to play.

[edit]
I'll remain with my cautious optimism. In the end, I just want to see this device in every home. That is what's best for the VR industry. Politics and PR be damned.

However, I'll also be using Carmack as a canary. If he jumps ship, then I know the project is hitting rough territory with it's new owners.

Tell that to Winamp.

And corporate meddling is literally the reason John Carmack left Id software for the Oculus in the first place. Their parent company as of 2009 wouldn't invest in VR technology when he asked them to, so he said "Fine, kiss my butt goodbye" and joined Oculus.

My actions are as justified as my existence.

This isn't even something facebook does

I also don't get why there is all this fuss about Facebook per se, I do not agree and really can't jump on the FB haters bandwagon.

BUT STILL, I really really REALLY fail to see any good sense in such an acquisition by the "mission" point of view.

Facebook is not known as a reliable gaming platform nor it is a reliable biz in the strict sense of the word, and seems to be a bit stretched of a good venture for what should have been primarily a GAMING controller.

Homoungos financial backing is great no doubt, but it come with ties in the form of milestones and targets. Those targets HAVE TO satisfy FB's vision and development of the marketing platform.

Now the Oculus Rift isn't going to ever be dirt cheap, how can you bundle it with casual games? Where does this even BEGIN to make sense from the market point of view?

Will even Facebook ALLOW the controller to work outside their platform (i.e. say on some non-FB related AAA game)? (far-fetched to assume the contrary, I know...still...may happen? )

I'm not talking about those absurd "unremovable ads/unexsistant privacy/god knows what other creepiness" fusstalk. I'm thinking about market strategy for those masses you advocate, and how could Oculus achieve the success it aim(ed) for.

That controller HAD to start small and spread upon some big-gig success in my view.

This cannot conceivably EVER have got general consensus, since the Oculus KS has been funded by a lot of smallindies/gamers/VRentushiast that all would have tolerated (even failure) BUT acquisition by a big "evil" (sic) like FB.

Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo....that could have made sense (at least till some weeks ago ) ...even if they can get THEIR OWN technology investing far less than TWO FREAKING BILLIONS.

I repeat just cause, TWO FREAKING BILLIONS.

You just don't get that huge sum without ties.

I'd also use Carmark as litmus paper, but I right now think that it will end up on the acid scale.

Facebook is rolling out auto playing video ads "soon".

It's a controller and display that requires drivers and specific developer integration. Both of which are excellent opportunities to push evil.

I am sure that it will still be a success, and in the early stages of it's life cycle I imagine this wont impact the quality or experience.

However, Facebook is not in the gaming market. They're in the advertising market. In the late stages of it's life cycle it will be an absolute terror.

Chris, I think the comparison to WinAmp is nonsense for the same reasons I've mentioned earlier. The Rift is hardware. Once someone buys it, an update isn't going to change what it does. Also, Carmack left Id not because it was purchased by a large corporation, but because that large corporation was explicitly preventing him from doing what he wanted to do (which, in this case, is integrate the Rift into Doom BGF). Thus, he makes a good canary to determine when the parent company has started overstepping their bounds.

pkrcel, why are you calling the Rift a platform? It is a controller. It can be integrated into any application on any platform. Whether or not the platform holders will allow it is up to them, but I digress.

gnolam, the drivers are user-space and compiled into the source, thus removing most of the key avenues drivers and developer integration have been pursued. We've been promised by Oculus VR the driver will remain open source and they will not even so much as require you to use Facebook to log in to their developer center. Why don't we hold off on the witch burning until at least one promise is broken.

Tell that to every web-enabled console ever made.

With platform I was referring to FB's gaming platform as such...I called the Rift "primarily a gaming controller"

I know this is referred to gnolam, still...it's not about with burning really....it's just trying to make out this as a strategic move for Oculus.

And only thing I see it's the lump sum o'money....nothing else.

FB acquiring this tech for? ...most prolly for something not really in the plans of Oculus, and this kind of things attracts fail.

I surely hope not, mind you, but lemme be somewhat pessimistic about it.

Chris, this still isn't a console. It is just a controller. It doesn't even (writable) have firmware.

pkrcel, how about the freedom to actually make their own parts, the ability to scale up all of their operations, the financing and platform for advertising their product, and the know-how of a company with some experience in garnering a massive user-base. Do any of these things not constitute an enormous gain for Oculus VR?
FB gains a broader portfolio, as well as a profit cut of what they are clearly convinced is the Next Big Thing.

It does however require drivers and a lot of software to get working.

Now consider that some bean counter at FB will start breathing down their neck to show some kind of return on the $2 billion dollars they spent, AND for all of the on-going expenses. It may not happen right away, but it will happen. Always does. then theres the internal politics bullcrap that happens at all big companies. Some manager is going to get a stick up his ass about it and cause everything to crater.

They do. Absolutely agree, but I don't think FB is the right partner for this, and you imply a lot further investment...

I'm simply not convinced, I hope to be wrong but I'm negative about how it'll end up.

No evil involved in my reasoning, I simply do not trust this as a sound move for both parties.

Just to be clear, it's OBVIOUS that you can't say no to two freaking billion bucks....

It requires user-space drivers. Even if FB eventually decides to make them closed source, it won't matter. The hardware won't change, so people could go on using the already open sourced drives for future projects. Since the drivers are compiled into applications, not linked at runtime, it won't effect any existing projects either.

I do understand that large corporations always have some kind of idiocy, but I believe in the case of Oculus VR the only thing directed will be the applications Oculus VR creates after releasing the Rift. If those applications tie into facebook, what is the harm? It isn't as if other companies will be forced to have facebook integration and having some social game use the Rift is a very good thing for the future of VR as a whole.

pkrcel, would you be happier if FB payed less? Or if it was MS or Apple who made the acquisition? Bottom line, VR was interesting but doomed to failure without an acquisition of Oculus VR. There weren't enough adopters to make VR integration profitable. FB is a fantastic solution for increasing the number of adopters.

Till they release the next version of the hardware that needs new closed drivers. heck maybe the current version never gets released in favour of a closed model?

Fracturing your own market makes makes very little to no sense. The only power FB has to force upgrades is new and exciting Oculus VR games. They have no say over the rest of companies developing for PC. As long as one version of the device has open source drivers, then I don't see how FB can ruin much of anything. Have you tried the newest devkit? Thus far, we've been explicitly told the development community will remain untouched. There is absolutely no evidence pointing to the contrary.

They have all the say over anything Oculus does.

If you have one of the original units, as far as I know almost noone has one of the new ones. And they can decide to just not ship that version, because PROFFIT!

Take a look at their previous purchasing history. Virtually all of its purchases were absorbed, then shut down. Maybe because it doesn't tie directly into its current business model that might not happen... But it's pretty typical for these sorts of business deals. The two cultures don't mix, the one with the power then suffocates the other, and it either all dies a slow painful death, or will be shut down unceremoniously.

Every large tech company works like this. they but out little guys, and absorb them. Sometimes they make really odd decisions and buy things that make very little sense for their business model.... We can only hope it goes the way they claim to want it to, but I have my doubts.

There is still no evidence to the contrary. Trying to extrapolate from their history is not "evidence", it's just speculation. I also don't think I need to remind you of Instagram and WhatsApp.

yawn The Rift is fine, and if anything, is in a better position than it ever was.

Yes, lets not look at history. Clearly history is meaningless.

They actually somewhat fit into Facebook's model.. but eventually, if they don't pay the bills, bye bye. Besides its only been a short time since the WhatsApp purchase.

The only thing Oculus does that matters is ship the first version of their product. This hasn't happened yet, but it should be soon. Too soon, I should think, for FB to close off the driver source against promises. After the device is shipped, all Oculus as a company will do is make applications that use the device. Effectively becoming irrelevant in regards to where Facebook leads them to the future of VR.

I didn't say that. You're trying to make inferences that cannot be made. At best all you can offer is unfounded speculation, which again, is not evidence.

I'll be laughing my ass off when the Rift does just fine under the Facebook helm, and all of these armchair warriors come crawling back to it with a sour face.

Yeah, it doesn't make sense, but neither does Facebook Buying Oculus.

Dude, if they don't already have a team on the next version of the hardware, they will fall behind and fail hard. Unless you think they will turn into a Software only company? I imagine all of the first platforms will all use different devkits and apis making everything fun everyone and their dog has announced a vr headset.

Meh. I think the chances of that are not very good. I was thinking of getting one. I might now wait for Razer's or Samsung's, or Sony's or....

Actually, I don't care much what Facebook does with this or not apart from one thing: will we support the Rift and other stereoscopic displays on Allegro or not? Probably we could get away with using two windows (one for each eye), and the motion tracking would be a joystick input, or perhaps a new, separate specialized tracking input. What else would be needed?

Yes, I imagine they'll primarily turn into a software company. It's asking a bit much to request consumers to spend $300 frequently. The device requires at least a 6 year life cycle.

You wouldn't need a monitor per eye, or at least that would be an odd way of going about integration. The device works with one screen using two viewports. Integration is actually quite trivial. At least, it was with DK1. Of course, I'd recommend rolling your own driver. Oculus VR's driver is a bunch of over-engineered OO trash.

Of all the fantastic solutions, this one makes little business sense to me. BTW I'm not unhappy by the acquisition, but I'm not happy either.

I do NOT think FB acquired Oculus VR to have it shut down, I actually think the opposite to be fair...aw c'mon it's downright IMPOSSIBLE that FB shuts that close.

BUT

The acquisition of Instagram and Whatsapp were strategic for FB, they blend pefectly in their social development model...instead, were does the Rift fit in there?

OF COURSE FB has a very broad userbase, but not of the point-blank Rift target audience.

OF COURSE FB could leave all doors open for Games/Simulation companies.

Still...it's not that usually FB partners with other companies for development of non-core businees techs...

One thing is for sure, FB had no investment done into this kind of tech, and pouring a buckton on a solid estabilishment was a nice quick way to get that in-house (as I already said the tech companies closer to the proper "gaming" market could have more or less the same tech for LESS money since they already invested).

You seen what people spend on smart phones, tablets, and video games lately?

Smart phones and tablets are different. People can see you using them, so they are a status symbol. A VR headset following a console lifecycle makes a lot more sense to me. It has a similar purpose and is used in a similar environment.

I wonder how mobile games are supposed to bring in money at all. It seems like the market has forced them to $0.00 and are all ad supported, leaving nothing but gimmicky low-effort games.

Really?

Step 1: Disallow support for the open source version for anyone who wants to be able to support the versions actually being sold now.
Step 2:
Step 3: Profit.

nVidia and AMD would like a word with you. They'll handle some software sure, but they sure as hell better keep up with the hardware space too, or some other competitor will come along and beat them out with something "better".

As it is now, Oculus answers to Facebook. Facebook answers to their shareholders, and are legally obligated to maximize profits. If that means they have to use less expensive parts with a shorter shelf-life and quicker obsolescence, all the better (for them). A profit-driven company like Facebook isn't going to throw $2,000,000,000 at an up-and-coming startup and then leave them alone.

Facebook isn't interested in VR, they're interested in using VR to make money. And can you honestly say Facebook would want Oculus to take the time to make a quality product using quality parts to make "the best VR headset possible", rather than to use the cheapest parts they can get away with so they can have it release sooner to get a return on their 2 billion dollar investment? Oculus now, instead of being able to make a good product with the parts they can afford, has to answer to corporate CEOs (who likely know nothing of VR tech, or its needs) about why they're spending money on good parts rather than going with something not as good but cheaper.

Oculus getting a $2 billion injection also doesn't mean they have more money to spend on making a better product like they want. It means they have more money to spend that they must make back. Imagine if Oculus had stayed their course and got a consumer unit out after spending a total of $10 to $20 million, and managed to make back $30 or $40 million in sales. Fairly successful, yeah? Now with Facebook they can spend $200 to $400 million (or more) to get a consumer version out, but what if they manage $100 to $150 million in sales? That would more more successful than the other attempt, maybe it was even a better quality product, but the net result is a failure because they spent more in the process.

Or hell, it doesn't even have to be a technical failure. Imagine Oculus spends $300 million or so to get a product out, and make back about $320 million in sales. Same profit margin as before, but Facebook thinks they aren't making the kind of profits they can be. So despite being successful on paper, Facebook calls it a failure because they only made $20 million instead of $100+ million in profits.

Tell that to people who want to game with open source drivers. Then again, even the bloody proprietary AMD/nVidia drivers are slower on Linux than they are on Windows. Go figure.

Protip: Valve is addressing this issue. Valve started actually trying to write real games against those proprietary drivers, reported bugs and performance issues to the vendors, and the vendors fixed those issues. Valve then reported their games running faster on Linux in a short amount of time than they do on Windows after having much much more time for optimization, as well as their personnel having more experience programming games, for Windows.

I'm not challenging the idea that Facebook acquiring this "Oculus Rift" company is bad for the product and consumers. I fully agree. Facebook is a poison. I'm sure that within a few months we will see them poisoning the stream. $2 billion is a lot of money to spend. There is absolutely no way that they can make that back in a single product life-cycle. Especially for an unproven technology. There will be early adopters, but many more skeptical passers. And unless the product revolutionizes gaming it will probably never be able to return that $2 billion. That was probably an irresponsible amount of money to spend.

Insert: It reminds me a little bit of Wii, which was wildly popular (albeit, unfounded, which is probably the only hope Facebook has of making its money back). I really doubt that it was able to make that kind of profit. That was a gaming console, not a controller. I'm not sure whether that works for or against the "Oculus Rift".

Facebook should probably be investing this ridiculous cash that it's burning on philanthropic ventures instead. Legitimate ones though. Not the ones where it looks philanthropic, but you're really just laundering money amongst rich people.

Anyway, I highly doubt that Facebook will support or encourage open source drivers. Hardware is inherently expensive to design and manufacture, and difficult to profit on even when it's really really good at what it does (e.g., video cards, CPUs, motherboards). People do not have money trees. There is a limit to how much they can afford to spend, and the things that they can afford to spend money on.

Insert: The open source drivers will probably suffer the same problems that they do with GPU drivers: the detailed specs of the product would give away proprietary secrets necessary for monopolizing the product so they'll be suboptimal and lack features, at best. Meanwhile, the companies involved will exploit the proprietary angle to actually make their money.

We'll see. Honestly, I barely know anything about Oculus Rift so evidently I must have thought it was going to fail to begin with. I certainly don't think that Facebook will be good for them.

Append:

Generally speaking I'm skeptical of motion controls and virtual reality in general. Give me something like the holodeck on Star Trek: TNG and I'm sold. Anything short will probably disappoint me.

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@KittyKat
You way of reasoning is sound, but lacks some aspects of FB as a financial backer to Oculus.
FB will NOT want direct returns off the crude 2B$ in VR sales, that IMO would be crazy...FB's intent SHOULD be to increase OVERALL revenues by leveraging the new "platform" that shall come out using the new controller. New unprecedented User Esperience, that in a number of ways increased revenues (more pricy ads, more effective Product placement, paid VR services (but WHICH ONES??))

So generally speaking, making it CLEAR that to me it's not that evil FB will crush the intents of once-pure-and-uncorrupted Oculus VR.

More like...if FB was a Gaming-oriented company, I'd be more confident that there would be paths the Rift could go over to uncover that new user experience that's supposed to increase revenues. In the tenth of millions PROFIT ranges thou, not in the hundreds or, spare me, THOUSANDS of millions.

It's quite obvious that the real aim of VR is to get as much pervasive as social-networks are striving to are (FB leads there, no?), so there is a convergence of targets, but where I see divergence is in the paths the two things are bound to follow:

• social interaction is now a blurred 'action' between the likes of sending an SMS, tagging a photo you've just taken with your smartphone, tweet-feed the status of your commute train line and a heck of other "snips" you can do with the pervasive tech we have at hand right now, and can only get 'better' (or 'worse', as the case may be)

  
  

• Virtual Reality is....er...something not yet as defined an Experience as one would think. Sure thing it will NOT be that much pervasive anytime soon.

'soon' being the Keyword here....when FB will return into the 2 billions? I can only imagine a very long term ROI here...

I sincerely hope there's a master biz plan under those 2 billion, I sincerely do....but I can't help being pessimist.

Now this horse has been beaten enuff.

In very different ways for different audiences. The aim of Facebook is to sell as much ad space as possible and to monetize as much data they can get from their users as possible. Just because Facebook has a lot of users doesn't mean those users will necessarily be interested in what Oculus was aiming for, or what Oculus's original backers (you know, the people that gave them $2.4 million straight up, no strings attached, to get the project started) were expecting.

These aren't drivers you install. They are built into the application in user-space. Having one open source version means every game for eternity can use that same open source version, or a fork of it. These drivers are not complex. I rolled my own version in a matter of hours. I've said this many times already but it doesn't seem to sink in.

Eh, why am I bothering to argue with people who don't even know the product and who haven't been following the company?

Anyway, Bams, you should try the thing out. It is very impressive. Although, we have the holodeck thing now as well. CastAR is a thing Valve was working on, until they the person in charge got fed up with the culture and left. Now Valve is working on something different, with CastAR being part of it's own company. It is equally impressive tech.

I think you're ignoring the fact that computer electronics are programmable, both in hardware and in software, and the ease or difficulty of reprogramming them is at the mercy of the designer. It may be true that current iterations of the product are entirely open and accessible and that we can never be "locked out" from them. How many devices currently exist? Certainly not enough for all of us [that might eventually want one on Earth]. They need to make more, and nothing requires them to make them exactly the same as they do now. Nothing is stopping them from building in the programming in the next iterations.

The PlayStation 3 was originally released with the ability to run a third party operating system, but it was in a [restricted] hypervisor. Eventually, that capability was turned off entirely. Currently these devices sound like dumb hardware so that can not be done. Nothing stops them from becoming smart hardware in future iterations. Drivers can be built-in. And even if the drivers aren't built-in, the community's ability to provide adequate open source drivers depends in part on the cooperation of the vendor (see Intel, Nvidia and AMD for reference). At any time they can change their mind and choose not to cooperate (and being that it is now essentially a piece of the Facebook anti-social engine that's exactly what I predict they will do). It is hard to do things like "forced advertising" on an open device.

Maybe I will check it out. I doubt I have the money for it right now, even if it is available. I highly doubt I will be interested in developing for it.

Now that has a better chance of capturing my imagination, but I still foresee problems. Holodecks only work because of TV magic. What starts out being a room with fixed dimensions (albeit, a room far larger than most of us could afford to have for this) turns into an infinite space when the hologram is running (there are occasional exceptions where the "bounds" of the room become plot devices in the narrative, but those are the exception, not the rule). And above and beyond that, holodecks actually produce physical worlds that interact exactly like real life (with magical "safe guards" against doing harm to people). I don't know what this CastAR is (though the name sounds vaguely familiar so I imagine I've already shrugged it off before), but I'm confident that it isn't what I really want it to be. It might still be an awesome and amazing thing.

http://facerift.ko-opmode.com/