I was initially positive about the Oculus Rift, but now having seen some samples and seen that the headset itself has become much bulkier than what was shown in the KS video I'm not certain.
I will definately wait on consumer response to see how it turns out when it goes on sale.
There was also another project by an ex Valve employee, but I can't remember the name, though it looked a lot more practical than the Rift.

Still pumped?
http://games.slashdot.org/story/14/03/25/2272 … r-for-2-billion

DosFreak wrote:

Still pumped?
http://games.slashdot.org/story/14/03/25/2272 … r-for-2-billion

It's over 😢

You gotta be kidding me! No rift for me but maybe it's OK - FaceRift will blaze the trail with their billions of dollars and cheap clones will pop up for anti-social shut-ins like me.

Still pumped, but a lot less so.

DosFreak wrote:

Still pumped?
http://games.slashdot.org/story/14/03/25/2272 … r-for-2-billion

So John Carmack is now a billionaire instead of a mere multi-millionaire?

I wasn't super keen on this before, but I did think it was an interesting technology and might have purchased if the price was right.
Now Facebook will probably shrink it down, give the damn things away for free but it records everything you look at.

Nuts to that says I 😒

Facebook probably sees it as a Google Glass-style prospect. I'm not surprised...

Ew, social networking VR... Seriously fuck that.

Even though I'm highly anti-social I rather be physically in person than put on some VR head device that I'd rather be using to play <insert vehicle here> simulators with...

All the articles I've read about this acquisition including the things Notch said about it, pretty much just made me stay clear of this thing for now and forever... I wonder how Sony is doing with their VR project.

Ugh how I wish Facebook didn't boom so large, I wish they died out like all the retarded companies during the dot com bubble.

Yeah, I don't care for Facebook, don't have a profile and won't if I can avoid it. It's like a damn cult. "You mean you're not on Facebook? You've got to get a Facebook profile".

I've heard some employers will refuse to hire if you have no social networking presence. That seems beyond stupid. Seems like a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. Makes me want to start my own business more and more.

Ben Mansill (former editor PC PowerPlay, former editor Atomic, editor PC Authority) writes:

http://forums.atomicmpc.com.au/index.php?show … dpost&p=1126193

It's fantastic news. Seriously. All it means is: […]
Show full quote

It's fantastic news. Seriously. All it means is:

HEAPS of money to develop it - this is very good.

Many apps and worlds that will use it for social shit - to us gamers, we can be indifferent about this because it won't affect the gaming side one little bit.

It's hardware, not software. So they can't fuck with it or fuck it up. Even if FB wanted it purely for social VR - which they don't - the hardware would still have to be super-quality utterly convincing immersion. That's good. That's the hardware we wanted and expected.

Notch has been a precious bitch about it. 3rd-party support for Minecraft OR lets him have his little tanty and no-one loses.

Read Palmer Luckey's posts on Reddit HERE.

Among the highlights:

"
This deal specifically lets us greatly lower the price of the Rift.

Just promise me there will be no specific Facebook tech tie-ins.
I promise.
Why would we want to sell to someone like MS or Apple? So they can tear the company apart and use the pieces to build out their own vision of virtual reality, one that fits whatever current strategy they have? Not a chance.

We have not gotten into all the details yet, but a lot of the news is coming. The key points:
1) We can make custom hardware, not rely on the scraps of the mobile phone industry. That is insanely expensive, think hundreds of millions of dollars. More news soon.
2) We can afford to hire everyone we need, the best people that fit into our culture of excellence in all aspects.
3) We can make huge investments in content. More news soon
"

So, you 'Facebook is evil guys' - WHY is this bad, exactly, specifically, and don't just say "they'll ruin it".

Sony's annpuncement was bad news for OR. Sony have far better access to components and more power in the supply chain, and they can design and fab - or more easily have fabbed - custom ICs. That, and the liklihood Sony's VR will be cheaper than OR because it uses bit of the PS4 that you already own (like the camera), not to mention vast experience in engineering attractive and comfortable head mounted displays.

OR was facing a real threat, now it has a fighting chance.

So if the Sony came out and was better than the final OR would you not buy the Sony? Or is Sony too evil for your money, too?

If the net result is a cheaper Oculus Rift, then who cares who funds it?

Storm in a teacup.

Edit: Good commentary from Palmer Luckey, Mister Oculus Rift himself: http://www.reddit.com/user/palmerluckey

Because people read facebook and have knee jerk reactions and have to write rants about what the many ways facebook sucks. Not to mention the boring "I don't use facebook because..."

Facebook BOUGHT it it's not funding it it OWNS it. this could mean not standardization. in the news not too long ago all the VR companies met up to to try and set some standards (good for the consumer) with Facebook i could see them not making it open using it to prop up facebook in some way or just in general doing thing we might not like. basically they are not trust worthy.

at this point i'm not getting my hopes up it's watching/waiting game now. guess we will see what happens. maybe they are just gonna be a parent company and just pump more money in to for a % of the profits.

cdoublejj wrote:

Facebook BOUGHT it it's not funding it it OWNS it. this could mean not standardization. in the news not too long ago all the VR companies met up to to try and set some standards (good for the consumer) with Facebook i could see them not making it open using it to prop up facebook in some way or just in general doing thing we might not like. basically they are not trust worthy.

at this point i'm not getting my hopes up it's watching/waiting game now. guess we will see what happens. maybe they are just gonna be a parent company and just pump more money in to for a % of the profits.

Irrespective of what you think of their web site, corporately Facebook is all about open source technology:

https://code.facebook.com/projects/

https://github.com/facebook

Earlier on, they developed a database called Cassandra, which is completely Apache-license open source.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Cassandra

As I wrote knee jerk reactions and making facebook out to be evil in all sorts of things (while right now they are "just" evil in regard to data collecting and connecting).
It could be that they fire every one, it could be that they will shut it down and just use the name, it could be that they make the rift online only and you need to log in with your facebook account to use it, or they will control your mind and make you do stuff because... uhm... Because they are evil!!!!

Or things will just continue as they were except for a facebook branding...

I guess Suckerberg wants his Metaverse. 🤣

Dominus wrote:

As I wrote knee jerk reactions and making facebook out to be evil in all sorts of things (while right now they are "just" evil in regard to data collecting and connecting).
It could be that they fire every one, it could be that they will shut it down and just use the name, it could be that they make the rift online only and you need to log in with your facebook account to use it, or they will control your mind and make you do stuff because... uhm... Because they are evil!!!!

Or things will just continue as they were except for a facebook branding...

I don't think Facebook is any more evil than any other enormous corporation, but your data is obviously valuable to them, and I don't think what they offer in return is all that valuable. If Facebook's money is what the Oculus needs to be successful, fine I guess. I probably wasn't going to rush to buy one in any case, I've been burned too many times as an early adopter.

Facebook is probably just looking for a way to get into the patent trolling game that Apple, Google,Microsoft,Sony, Samsung,etc have gotten so good at.

That or something that could maybe take on Google Glass

While I wasn't really pumped for the Oculus Rift, I'm even less pumped knowing Facebook owns it now. While I don't doubt that the device will still turn out exactly the way the team planned it to, perhaps even better with the extra money, what it boils down to is that I don't want to support Facebook because I don't have confidence in them as a company and thus I won't be getting an Oculus Rift for that reason alone. :P

DracoNihil wrote:

Ew, social networking VR... Seriously fuck that. […]
Show full quote

Ew, social networking VR... Seriously fuck that.

Even though I'm highly anti-social I rather be physically in person than put on some VR head device that I'd rather be using to play <insert vehicle here> simulators with...

All the articles I've read about this acquisition including the things Notch said about it, pretty much just made me stay clear of this thing for now and forever... I wonder how Sony is doing with their VR project.

Ugh how I wish Facebook didn't boom so large, I wish they died out like all the retarded companies during the dot com bubble.

Facebook makes an odd sort of sense. Think about it, hundreds of millions of people use Facebook- all around the world every day. Cost sharing is what it amounts too- make enough people want it, and via marketing- make these new capabilities a "want" for the masses - potential customers. People will spend to get what they "want" in this world. Whether they actually "need" it, or not. Just need a ready to hand customer base for the product.

Doesn't matter to me if it is a Facebook type concern, or NASA - and since we don't exactly fund the sciences in the USA anymore (another subject) ... it will be up to private industry to make it happen... at a huge profit no doubt. Who cares which company? Whichever can best afford it works as well as any other, to my way of thinking.

But once VR is able to deliver in communications, the ability and the cost to deliver in "entertainment" will have been substantially reduced, and hopefully even expedited. Facebook could become the next Microsoft - only in the communications field, if they are smart... and successful.

Having said all of that, the fact remains that I am far from being excited about any of it- since I am of the same mind as badmojo in one regard....

badmojo wrote:

As good as modern gaming is, with red hot hardware that’s dirt cheap and more games being released than I could possibly keep up with, I just don’t have any interest in it anymore. My i5 sits idle while I play with old hardware and 20 year old games, and one of the reasons I do that is because I miss the feeling that computer gaming gave me back then. I had a real sense of wonder at the seemingly endless possibilities during the 90’s – a lot of it was hype, but there were mind blowing advancements too. I just don’t get that from modern gaming,

/\ this... /\

is what gets my juices flowing New crap, new games, new video cards, etc~ bah... whatever.

Maybe I am just getting old- maybe I would be more excited about more mundane topics... like making a new set of teeth for myself? 🤣

The creator of minecraft wasn't happy about facebook's purchase:

I definitely want to be a part of VR, but I will not work with Facebook. Their motives are too unclear and shifting, and they haven’t historically been a stable platform. There’s nothing about their history that makes me trust them, and that makes them seem creepy to me.

Full post here: http://notch.net/2014/03/virtual-reality-is-g … ange-the-world/