“After receiving criticism for the surprise announcement that Facebook is buying the developer of the Oculus Rift virtual-reality headset, Oculus VR, for £1.2 billion, the co-founder of Oculus has defended the sale, claiming that the deal with Facebook is better for the company than a deal with Apple would have been,” Ashleigh Allsopp reports for Macworld UK.
“Understandably, many Oculus watchers expressed concerns about the sale of the company to Facebook, as it raises many questions about the future of the virtual reality pioneer,” Allsopp reports, “which has previously been largely focused on gaming applications.”
MacDailyNews Take: And making wearers of their product look like absolute barmpots.
Read more in the full article here.
Related article:
Facebook buys Oculus: Why Apple hasn’t missed the boat on virtual-reality – March 27, 2014
I don’t know. 3D TV seems to have come and gone with little public interest. People feel the 3D glasses are a pain. So how many are going to want to stick their head in a 3D box? 2 billion bucks for that? I fear for my Facebook stock.
Agreed, this will be a tool for gamers and some specific developer/engineer users only, not for the avg. person. No one wants to strap on this device to watch tv, or interact with anything. Consider where TV is going, its becoming more of the 2nd display now that ever. More and more people are watching content via ipad, tablet, laptop, phone, and not TV. The TV is just on in the back ground or used when watching a movie. But even for hard core movie watching, do i really want to strap this to my head? In order to take advantage of the “look around” features in movies, they would need to be filmed with 360 degree camera? No way, will not happen any time soon.
FIRE Tim Cook!
Ahh, fantastic. Chuckle. So much fun to have your great posts, joker. Such insight. Such humor. And the constant freshness of new thoughts. You must have crafted that one for quite a while.
Why, because he didn’t waste $1.2 billion?
Apple has no need for virtual reality. That’s going to be limited to hard core gamers, and if Apple ever does want virtual reality on AppleTV or something else, I’m sure a third party developer will be right there to sell its gear.
He’s called the Joker. Does any one get irony here?
The guy in the photo looks like he taped a TV to his face.
This is what happens when you get a bunch of gamer geeks excited. The stuff is cobbled together, hard to use and crash prone. But it is something new and exciting. I agree with the comment on 3D TV. It keeps trying but with little success.
I am really glad Apple’s hardware is better thought out and tested before release. I just wish I could say the same of their software.
3D TV keeps trying? I think it’s dead. Just went shopping for a big screen last week and the 3D tvs were cheaper than the new regular TVs. Looks like a clearance sale to me.
Candy Crush.
Yea, they were afraid that Apple would discover that they were not up to the task of developing an elegant product that did not require duck tape.
To chose one over the other would imply two parties wanted this company. I just don’t see Apple being one of these parties. I’ve read some of Apple’s patents on VR and headwear so it’s not like Apple doesn’t know this space. They [Apple] probably know it will be some time if every this will be a large and profitable market. My guess is this CEO is somewhat delusional and desperate for cash.
Really. Did Apple or Microsoft every talk to them, let alone offer to buy them? Is this mere hype and hyperbole? Looking for attention? Desperate justification for selling out to Facebook, of all companies?
Perhaps they should take their product off the market claiming that their customers were spending too much time with their face screen. 😉
Tongue-lick marks obscuring the screen. Install internal windshield wipers. Getting too gross. Stopping now.
I think you’re not seeing the potential for virtual reality (VR) headsets. Apart from gaming use, they have application in the military field for rotary wing (helicopter) and fixed wing (jet airplanes, vertical lift off planes like V-22 Osprey) aircraft.
In fact the F-35 Lightning II fighter jet pilot wears a VR helmet that project images captured by cameras on the outside of the plane so that the pilot by moving his head has a virtualised image of the air (or ground, in ground attack mode) situation outside his plane which helps decision making as to target acquisition and prosecution.
In the consumer field, VR gaming will be the next step up due to total immersion within the game environment. You can also use VR goggles to model the construction of, for example, the next generation Boeing 777X because you can create a virtual fly through of the airplane cabin and parts assembly so that parts can be joined together with micron (sub-millimetre) tolerances.
Wow, had not thought of that. My god, there is at least 100 sales right there. And what with the gumint involved they can get the 2 bil back in no time. What was I thinking,
That quote was from Wayne Gretzky. Jobs borrowed it.
The uses you spouted about are all fine and wonderful, and have virtually no value for a company which sells consumer electronics like Apple. Gaming aside, you’re talking about very small, niche markets, mostly military (and BTW, one of the big problems with the F35 is that the helmet system doesn’t work well. In fact, the plane can’t fly at night right now).
No one is going to put on helmets to watch TV save a few extreme tech heads. Which means you won’t be seeing VR content on your DirecTV or Netflix or ABC anytime.
Yes, but just because Apple didn’t buy Oculus doesn’t mean they are sitting on their hands. Apple has many patents in VR and I’m sure there is stuff in the lab. I’m not worried about the Oculus product. It’s being designed for gaming, and I think that is a natural first use. The Sony version for Playstation looks pretty cool.
I think most people wanted a touch interface device or tablet pre-iPad/iPhone, so there’s you talking shit once again. It took Apple a long time to come up with a tablet and a smartphone that nailed it well enough to reiterate on, but practical uses were there from the beginning.
As a former gamer any VR gear better not turn my head into a mini-oven after a few hours of playing, so we’ll have to see how that turns out.
As far as wearables being dominant, we’ll see. Right now Glassholes look like idiots.
Sorry, I just have a hard time envisioning a future where more than a handful of people in a room wearing these things for things other than games or some geek’s VR wet dream. I mean, just imagine a room full of nerds wearing Google glasses: it’s ridiculous!
I actually saw a glasshole in the wild. The guy spent the whole time sitting in food centre trying to get it to do something. He gave up looking pissed off.
Made my day
My dear ‘Trevor Philips Industries’ – i’m sorry, but this wearable tech thing is for the birds.
If you notice, Geordie Laforge has proper eyes in the movies.
Even the iWatch idea is a stretch, I just don’t think it’s going to happen, and if it does it’ll need to be spectacular for me to even consider it.
I’m far more interested in tech like the tricorder. Now THAT I would love to see.
Does that mean I lack ‘imagination’, because I don’t agree people will wear TVs on their face??? I don’t think so.
You describe the f35 already having this type of tech. Given the requirements that must mean oculus is pretty far behind.
Some game developers have already said they would no longer consider developing content for this device due to the Facebook purchase. How many others will think twice.
Many, many consumer products have been developed from military research. That is one of the (initially) unintended major benefits of our huge military budget.
Meanwhile, Apple is working on giving everyone the nth iteration of the next iPhone that looks like all the others. ZZZ
Isn’t it funny though that every so-called smart phone still looks like the inth iteration of of iPhone.
FaceBook. Now put this over your face. Let me see you make a duckface and take a selfie now!
Yeah because Facebook won’t toss Oculus on the scrapheap when they find they can’t slip ads into it.
Exactly. Allsopp won’t be running much of anything once Zuckerberg comes into his office, demands ad delivery be implemented, and Allsopp tries to argue. We may never hear from the guy again.
Talk about naive.
I think what he really meant to say was, “Facebook wrote the biggest check by far.” Notice he didn’t say Apple or Microsoft were actually trying to buy his company, just that he was not going to sell it to them so they could try to make it useful.
Nice try Allsopp. You make this a hits piece by inserting Apple into your article. You make it sound like Luckey had something that Apple wanted when in reality, they probably had zero interest. He didn’t say they were approached by Apple or they even had talks with them.
They have their own if they want to go in that direction and for sure it would be a much better design and it wouldn’t cost them a billion+ to buy that POS!
I would prefer a deal with Facebook too. They must be the world’s worst negotiators. By their reckoning, my Honda Accord is worth $27M!
No Thomas, Google holds that title.
I’m not so sure. Google was in negotiations with WhatsApp at the same time as Facebook. They bailed far short of 19 billion. In fact, they paid much less for Motorola, which was stupid, mind you, but 19 Billion for WhatsApp is a whole new level of stupid.
If I’m Facebook’s banker, I’m making some serious phone calls tomorrow.
“claiming that the deal with Facebook is better for the company than a deal with Apple would have been”
Duh. Apple wouldn’t have been dumb enough to give them $2B for the company.
Virtual reality is virtually a cartoon.
This company is more interesting: http://technicalillusions.com/castar/
$1.2 billion for a maybe fad product that may-might have significant users, if ….
I think Facebook is getting scared stiff Facebook itself is a fad.
Indeed, I have a 16yr daughter and among her crowd Facebook is totally not cool because their parents are there.
Facebook is a fad and I suspect Zuckerberg is very very worried.
Apple wouldn’t have coughed up anything like that kind of cash. If they wanted to be in the VR business, they could come up with hardware that beat Oculus’ products for a lot less than $3B.
-jcr
Panic move
facebox
Oculus is not the only player in the VR game- on the contrary, it is one of thousands. Whether or not they inhabit the region that Apple needs is the game.
The photo looks like it’s for one of those “Animal gets head stuck in Jar” stories.