There are three main issues with it. Firstly, raising money for OR via kickstarter and selling people on a dream of an open VR platform. I don't think anyone is surprised that they took $2b, but it still pisses people off as they that feel their money was used to drive valuation for a facebook purchase. It's all well and good saying 'well they received DK1', but the point of getting DK1 was to build things for the open consumer version of the OR.
That brings up the second point. The openness of OR will go away - you can see from Zuckerberg's comments that their intent is around advertising (rivetting stuff). This suggests fb will become pervasive in what you can build for the OR and what requirements get introduced. Instead of an open hardware initiative that allowed you to do whatever you wanted, we're going to see that getting compromised. Finally - Facebook are patent happy and are likely to go after competitors in the VR space. This is going to limit the ability of competitors to come into the market, and will stifle innovation. This is the way things go in technology now. However - John Carmack seems to be suggesting that OR would have hit scaling problems without this deal. Manufacturing costs a lot of money and $75m plus DK orders wouldn't have allowed them to do anything beyond off the shelf components - so maybe this will end up with a better consumer unit at the end of it. If it's not open and the drive is no longer towards games then a lot of the original backers and developers are going to jump ship (and already are). The upside to this is that there is now room for a competitor to come in - we might see Valve change their mind and introduce a consumer version of their VR stuff. However, they'll have to build a new team and it's going to take a long time - and they might get sued. On 26 March 2014 07:12, Francisco Criado <[email protected]> wrote: > If fb today represents a part of your mixed virtual/real life in a 2d > plane, it means with OR adquisition, maybe, some second life style network? > but second life never had the success as expected... > F. > > On Wednesday, March 26, 2014, Paul Doyle <[email protected]> wrote: > >> "Mark Zuckerberg is already pointing out Facebook's acquisition of >> Instagram as an example of how the company is getting experience buying >> properties and allowing them to continue to operate independently. >> Zuckerberg called out virtual reality as one of the computing platforms of >> the future -- following desktops and mobile -- and yes, talked about >> building Facebook's advertising into it. *Specifically, he talked about >> the potential of a virtual communication network, buying virtual goods, and >> down the line, advertising."* >> >> >> On 26 March 2014 06:48, Francisco Criado <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> If through fb, this arrives to the masses is better for our work, don't >> you think? what better than OR helmet being bought by lot of people. >> Maybe i'm missing some point here. >> F. >> >> >> On Wednesday, March 26, 2014, Angus Davidson <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >> Farmville 3d ;) Oh the Horror ! >> >> It really depends if this deal makes the Oculus Rift easily affordable >> then its a good deal. Jon says it addresses some scaling issues which I am >> assuming to be getting it ready for mass distribution. >> >> >> >> >> >> From: Doeke Wartena <[email protected]> >> Reply-To: "[email protected]" < >> [email protected]> >> Date: Wednesday 26 March 2014 at 10:26 AM >> To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> >> Subject: Re: Oculus Rift >> >> a man not FB :( >> They probably fuck it up in some way to make more money. >> >> >> 2014-03-26 7:01 GMT+01:00 Mirko Jankovic <[email protected]>: >> >> that is one big f***k! really >> if FB buy this I will ignore completly and wait for something else. >> >> get ready for VR FB and FB games in VR full of adds crap... >> >> I sooo hate that crapbook... >> >> morning before coffee not good.... >> >> >> On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 1:10 AM, Rares Halmagean <[email protected]>wrote: >> >> I think this is great for oculus and the team to fast trek their product >> and compete with >> other<http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/18/5523984/sony-reveals-project-morpheus-its-vr-system-for-ps4> >> initiatives <http://www.zeiss.com/cinemizer-oled/en_de/home.html> and to >> bring us more affordable options. So let the games begin! >> >> >> On 3/25/2014 6:09 PM, Paul Doyle wrote: >> >> yes, I'm gutted. What a shitty way to treat all the people that funded >> the kickstarter with Luckey's vision of a completely open VR platform. >> We'll probably still continue with the Fabric extension as even if we >> eventually change to a different VR system a lot of the work will remain >> valid. >> >> Meh. >> >> >> On 25 March 2014 18:59, Francisco Criado <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> guys, have you checked news? wtf! >> >> >> http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/25/5547456/facebook-buying-oculus-for-2-billion >> >> >> 2014-03-20 22:41 GMT-03:00 Paul Doyle <[email protected]>: >> >> We saw it and are excited :) >> >> >> On 20 March 2014 21:33, Francisco Criado <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> Hi Helge! have you seen the new rift dev kit? they >> have positional tracking now :) Quite str >> >>
