Still doesn't explain Facebook's decision to buy it. I have to agree with Notch from Minecraft, "Facebook is creepy". Considering he created the Creeper, that's saying something.
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Edited by Bistromathics: 3/27/2014 5:04:39 AMI think Facebook sees this as the new smartphone. It's a new platform and a new way of experiencing... things. For Facebook, the transition from computer monitor to smartphone screen has been very rocky, but it's been incredibly important to make that transition because people use their phones for everything. And smartphones have completely changed the paradigms for consuming all this web content and apps and stuff: you have a tiny touchscreen, lots of sensors for tracking location and orientation, the fact that the device is with people everywhere they go, etc. Oculus Rift has the [i]potential[/i] to be something like that. By getting in on it now, Facebook can a) develop the technology themselves and be first to market and b) get right on the new platform immediately. Facebook doesn't have much experience in hardcore game development or [i]successful[/i] hardware development (lol), which means they will bring in some people to help but mainly stay out of the way. They will help talk to developers where they can but probably just stick to throwing money at the technology. Facebook's actual strength is in bringing content to the table: the news agencies, the music and TV/movie distributors, the entertainment media, etc. They can also actually synthesize all of that data and give people exactly what they want (or what they don't even know they want yet). So if you want to build OR into a platform that delivers VR sports and concert and whatever other experiences, Facebook is a pretty good partner. Not that we need much more justification to say Facebook is creepy, but with the recent government surveillance scandal, there's no doubt that it's discomforting to see another device (and one with so much potential) fall into the hands of the company. What's been lost here isn't Oculus Rift the gaming platform, it's Oculus Rift the [i]open[/i] platform.
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Exactly on all points. I can see OR definitely becoming something more social, but it is WAY too early to even start throwing money at. It's funny, because when you mentioned giving the OR devs the money to actually get things done, I still thought back to all sci-fi books and movies involving the human race gaining a large leap in technology in a very short span of time. 9 times out of 10, something very bad happens. :)