Facebook to Acquire Oculus
Above is the link to the conference call regarding the acquisition of Oculus VR.
On the call are Brendan Iribe( OculusVR) and Mark Zuckerberg(Facebook) as well as a few office personnel from both parties and a couple people who have questions for them regarding the acquisition and the future for Oculus VR.
***** I HIGHLY recommend that you listen to it before you comment *****
So, after listening to the call it became very clear the interest that Facebook has with Oculus VR
Short answer is to make money (duh )
But how that money is made is by something that Facebook does very well...the answer: Advertising
Now before you all go start throwing a temper tantrum like a bunch of 3rd grade school girls hear me out.
The ads that FB intends to have sounds like any other website on the internet that you use.
If I am understanding Mark correctly he wants to create a website that is like a VR hub. A central marketplace if you will. A main website to use as a portal to pretty much whatever VR experience you are looking for, be it gaming, shopping, sporting events, social networking, or just plain ole cool VR experiences. The ads will be placed on THAT website and advertisers Im sure will be willing to pay top dollar for a spot on the main pages. Its genius really.
But as Mark said that is not a plan for the anytime near future as VR has not hit homes across the globe... yet.
As he said in the conference call his immediate goals are to help get a great product out to the people as soon as they can. Because whats the use in having a VR central hub website, if no one has a VR headset to experience it. It only makes sense for Mark to have OculusVR's best interest in mind.
So for all those that think this is bad, you have got to realize what this means for the future of VR. Mark wants the Rift to be in every home across the globe. ( Isn't that something we wanted from the beginning too?)
So how will all this work you may ask. Well I am certainly not a business/advertising guru by any means but I can see the writing on the walls plain as day. Let me lay it out for you.
1. FB buys Oculus VR to secure their place with the future of VR media interface.
2. FB says heres a lot of capitol(money) to make the rift simply incredible
3. FB already has brand recognition that it can use to help boost CV1 Rift sales
(In turn boosting the market for anything and everything VR)
4. Steal underpants (sorry I couldn't resist- South park reference)
5. The consumer and software community booms because of the laws of supply and demand
6. FB creates a central hub website that brings together all these wanted VR uses(as mentioned in the paragraphs above)
7. Advertisers start paying big bucks to put their ads on this central hub website that soon everyone with access to VR will undoubtedly be going to.
8. Profit
Now do you guys get it???
Your NOT going to have ads popping up in your face while you are rifting, that would be ridiculous and an instant death for the platform. Mark wants people to enjoy their experience so they use his central hub website more. (duh)
So for all of you that think this was a bad idea, I say you are ignorant to how business works.
This isn't going to kill the rift, quite the contrary. It is going to make it as common place as the cell phone in your pocket.
Now, if any of you are smart and wanted to jump on the "facebook handing out gobs of money" bandwagon.
You would start developing apps/platforms for different uses for VR. As I see FB buying up the rights to anything they see they could use for their central hub VR site.
So what do you guys think? Lets have a civil discussion and save all the Facebook bashing for the Reddit forums.