Similarly to Google, who tries to dip its toes in as many waters as possible, Facebook turned to virtual reality and bought the maker of Oculus rift for $2 billion.
The social network recently bought text messaging app Whatsapp, and now is committing to buy a manufacturer of virtual reality goggles, thus proving that Facebook is not shy about testing new waters. Whether this acquisition will be good or not for the company remains to be seen, as people currently have mixed feelings.
Facebook co-founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg stated in a conference call with the press and media yesterday that “The history of our industry is that every 10 or 15 years there’s a new major computing platform, whether it’s the PC, the Web or now mobile. We’re making a long-term bet that immersive, virtual and augmented reality will become a part of people’s daily life.” Furthermore, Zuckerberg admitted that Oculus Rift is “different than anything I’ve ever experienced in my life.”
In my humble opinion, Facebook’s CEO acts like a spoiled kid who must own whatever he likes. The joke running earlier this year about Zuckerberg buying Whatsapp because his subscription expired might as well be true. Another side of the story that is undoubtedly true is that Facebook bought Oculus VR in the idea of making a lot of money when the virtual reality technology fully develops.
Zuckerberg pointed out that Oculus Rift could be used for than just gaming: “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.”
Facebook stock went down 6% today, showing that a lot of shareholders entered panic selling mode. In other words, there are many shareholders who believe that Zuckerberg’s latest acquisition is a dumb move. RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Mahaney, on the other hand, explained that the social network’s move is not completely irrational: “The question this time is whether Facebook is too early or simply betting on the wrong platform. This won’t be known for some time. But if it gets the platform right, we’re relatively confident that Facebook will develop an effective monetization strategy for it, thus boosting its overall financial growth.”
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World-builders who rely on VR as one of their main tools of the trade should rejoice, as Oculus VR announced that it will launch the second edition of the Oculus Rift Development Kit in July.
The price of the new Dev Kit may be higher than the initial one (for those who don’t know or don’t remember, the first iteration was priced at $300), but the improved performance fully justifies the price difference. Last year, when this company launched the first Oculus Rift, the world was shocked with how affordable this technology has become. Now, at the 2014 Game Developers Conference, Oculus VR proved that it can make the virtual reality headset even better, while still maintaining the price-to-quality ratio.
Oculus founder Palmer Luckey explained that having taken the first step, the rest of the road is much easier now: “We’re much closer. The last year we’ve spent researching and developing what consumer VR needs to be… we didn’t know before, and we do now. We know what we need to ship, we know what parts we need to do it, we know where we can get those parts, and now it’s just a matter of playing the waiting game and putting it together.”
All in all, the DK2 is an improved version of the Crystal Cove prototype that Oculus VR exhibited at CES, earlier this year (see link to that story at the end of this post). The developers of this VR headset focused a lot on the comfort of the wearer and on his presence in the virtual world. To make everything look better, the company increased the resolution to 1080p, lowered the latency and improved the framerate. In other words, they proved to be quite responsive to the feedback they received from the developers who tested the first Dev Kit.
The company is already taking pre-orders for the Oculus Rift Dev Kit 2 starting today, so anyone who is interested should head over to the company’s website. Hopefully, developers won’t be late with developing content that can be used in tandem with this VR headset, as wasting such an opportunity would be a real shame. That said, the Oculus Rift DK2 is far from being perfect, but that only means that the manufacturers still have room for improvements that maybe we’ll get to see next year, in a new version.
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The first version of Oculus Rift hasn’t even penetrated the market well, and the manufacturer already announced a successor to … 
Think virtual reality is the exclusive playground of the PC gaming elite? It doesn't have to be. Oculus VR's Nate Mitchell says it's a matter of development support and interest. "Basically, the bar for a great VR experience is roughly 60 frames a second with stereoscopic 3D support in Vsync," said Mitchell in a recent interview. "The biggest challenge, actually, is working with the console platform providers, Microsoft and Sony, to make your peripheral a licensed peripheral." Oculus isn't reaching out to consoles, however -- Mitchell notes that while the current generation can reach 60fps in some cases, it often struggles to meet the demands of the Oculus Rift headset. Still, he admits there's no reason it couldn't work, and seems optimistic about the incoming console generation. "We'd definitely love to work with the console manufactures as we go down the road to get the Rift onto those platforms."
Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals