Facebook To Buy Oculus VR, Maker Of The Rift Headset, For Around $2B In Cash And Stock
“I’m excited to announce that we’ve agreed to acquire Oculus VR, the
leader in virtual reality technology,” said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg
in a statement today.
Our mission is to make the world more open and connected. For the past few years, this has mostly meant building mobile apps that help you share with the people you care about. We have a lot more to do on mobile, but at this point we feel we’re in a position where we can start focusing on what platforms will come next to enable even more useful, entertaining and personal experiences.
This is where Oculus comes in. They build virtual reality technology, like the Oculus Rift headset. When you put it on, you enter a completely immersive computer-generated environment, like a game or a movie scene or a place far away. The incredible thing about the technology is that you feel like you’re actually present in another place with other people. People who try it say it’s different from anything they’ve ever experienced in their lives.
Zuckerberg says that their efforts with Oculus will continue to focus
on gaming initially, and that the company will continue to operate
independently of Facebook. But after gaming, Zuckerberg says, they’re
going to expand into a variety of other arenas.
“After games, we’re going to make Oculus a platform for many other
experiences. Imagine enjoying a court side seat at a game, studying in a
classroom of students and teachers all over the world or consulting
with a doctor face-to-face just by putting on goggles in your home,”
he says. “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.”
Facebook, of course, found early success with games. Social gaming is
responsible for a lot of the growth and spread of Facebook as a
platform, rather than just a social service. Acquiring Oculus could
signal a variety of things, but being able to tap into what is
potentially the next big gaming trend is likely one of them. In
addition, Facebook has been aggressive about understanding and
supporting mobile use cases but only after an initial period of
foot-dragging and desktop focus. If VR is ‘what’s next’ then Facebook
will want to tap the market early, to avoid any transitional gaffes this
time around.
The purchase is expected to close in Q2 of 2014. Oculus has taken
over 75k orders for its virtual reality headset so far. Those headsets
have both been developer editions designed to get developers
interested in playing around with VR technology. The most recent
‘Crystal Cove’ prototype features a full 1080P display and more sensors
to detect and position users in virtual environments.
Of course, if you pull the thread of virtual reality out really,
really far you could see a future where we’re not talking about the
percentage of time people spend on mobile vs. desktop. Instead, we’re
talking about the amount of time that people spend in virtual reality
vs. actual reality. In that kind of landscape, Facebook starting in on
VR early makes painfully obvious sense.
The company has received a total of $93.4M in funding so far from
Spark, Matrix, Founders Fund, Formation 8, BIG Ventures and Andreessen
Horowitz. Oculus got a big boost in legitimacy recently when one of the
founding fathers of 3D gaming..
EnjOy..:)
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