Oculus Rift Development Kit 2 announced, up for preorder (based on Crystal Cove)

Much better facebook than a competitor that would try to lock down the technology.

Facebook only has something to gain if VR as an entire platform takes off, not just oculus.

This is great for oculus.

They were beholden to VCs prior to this. Now they might be beholden to facebook, but facebook gains nothing from their failure.
 
My fear is that Facebook is a publicly traded company. There is a reason companies that aren't interested in as much profit as possible at all times usually are the more successful companies. Public companies are just more likely to be risk adverse (or take the wrong risk, see Windows 8) which can be toxic for a tech company.

I'm not canceling my order yet, but I'm really worried. I'll keep an eye open for departures, and other companies reactions.

All in all yesterday was a bad day for the future of VR for consumers.
 
52club said:
My fear is that Facebook is a publicly traded company. There is a reason companies that aren't interested in as much profit as possible at all times usually are the more successful companies. Public companies are just more likely to be risk adverse (or take the wrong risk, see Windows 8) which can be toxic for a tech company.

I'm not canceling my order yet, but I'm really worried. I'll keep an eye open for departures, and other companies reactions.

All in all yesterday was a bad day for the future of VR for consumers.
Click to expand...

Oculus VR hasn't been independent for almost a year now (investors).
 
I had to think a lot about this and came to one conclusion: it doesn't matter in which way FB is going to use virtual reality. The tech behind it will always be the same; as good as possible. It's like TVs, 90% of the people that bought my TV will use it for TV shows, for smart TV apps (Facebook) etc. but I can perfectly play games with it, right?
 
52club said:
I never said they were independent, but they were not a part of publicly traded company with shareholders.
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The Zuck (tm) owns a majority share of the stock, and the Oculus team got pretty decent shares of the company as well as part of the deal. Facebook can easily override their shareholders if they so choose.
 
Faith said:
I had to think a lot about this and came to one conclusion: it doesn't matter in which way FB is going to use virtual reality. The tech behind it will always be the same; as good as possible. It's like TVs, 90% of the people that bought my TV will use it for TV shows, for smart TV apps (Facebook) etc. but I can perfectly play games with it, right?
Click to expand...

More or less. Facebook is basically paying for R&D of the technology, and while their long-term plans might sink Oculus as a brand and a company, the money they spent getting CV1 out the door is a good thing for VR in general.

This discussion got a lot wider than games, though. What Google, Apple, or Facebook have planned seems like some bonkers sci-fi shit, and most of it sounds sort of crazy and depressing, though 10 years ago we would've all thought the same about groups of friends huddled together looking at their phones instead of socializing.

But yeah, VR gaming is coming, even if Oculus isn't the one to deliver it.
 
52club said:
I never said they were independent, but they were not a part of publicly traded company with shareholders.
Click to expand...

A VC firm with a BOD is about the same as a publicly traded company, it's just smaller stakeholders. The BOD still has majority rule on almost all decisions. The start up I work for isn't publicly traded but the BOD calls the shots on a lot of things.

VC investors are still in it for a big return, they are in it hoping it will go public and generate a huge ROI. It's not like many BOD with money in a company is 'passionate' about the product, they want to see it profit.
 
I'm rather dying to jump on the VR bandwagon, but one thing keeping me from pulling the trigger is that I wear glasses. Will be possible to wear this contraption and my glasses as well? Or is that unfeasible right now?
 
ab.aeterno said:
I'm rather dying to jump on the VR bandwagon, but one thing keeping me from pulling the trigger is that I wear glasses. Will be possible to wear this contraption and my glasses as well? Or is that unfeasible right now?
Click to expand...
Its not ideal. Both Oculus and Sony say they want to accommodate glasses-wearers, but I don't think either have come up with anything that really works painlessly in that regard, from what I've read.

I think that contacts will probably be your best bet. Or maybe a very small, thin-framed set of glasses.
 
Faith said:
I had to think a lot about this and came to one conclusion: it doesn't matter in which way FB is going to use virtual reality. The tech behind it will always be the same; as good as possible. It's like TVs, 90% of the people that bought my TV will use it for TV shows, for smart TV apps (Facebook) etc. but I can perfectly play games with it, right?
Click to expand...

Lucky stated that Oculus will be and for a long time stay a gaming focused endeavor and that the hardware will be for gaming. but like game consoles today, its perfectly usable enjoy other forms of entertainment.
 
flyinpiranha said:
A VC firm with a BOD is about the same as a publicly traded company, it's just smaller stakeholders. The BOD still has majority rule on almost all decisions. The start up I work for isn't publicly traded but the BOD calls the shots on a lot of things.

VC investors are still in it for a big return, they are in it hoping it will go public and generate a huge ROI. It's not like many BOD with money in a company is 'passionate' about the product, they want to see it profit.
Click to expand...

From my experience the less people you have to convince of a strategy the easier it is. I don't disagree in both cases people are out to make money. It is just that the number of people trying to make money is much greater in one. This can lead to more agendas, which can stifle creativity since agendas often involve corporate politics.

I'm curious for those of you questioning my opinion, if you think this will lead to a better outcome for the consumer?
 
Faith said:
They now have the resources to make the CV1 even better and to ship it faster.
Click to expand...

I agree, but it is if they allocate those resources properly or at all is what I worry about. Plus the turnover that will likely occur will cause a shift as well.
 
Faith said:
They now have the resources to make the CV1 even better and to ship it faster.
Click to expand...

Better almost certainly but faster....I don't know. Couple of quotes from Palmer:
http://www.reddit.com/user/palmerluckey
This lets us make CV1 everything we want it to be, which is going to drive much larger sales and adoption.
Click to expand...
combined with this one
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.
Click to expand...

This rather sounds like it will take a while. If they want to start manufacturing custom displays first I cannot image this would be possible before one year has passed. Which matches the following recent comment from him

A lot of people are upset, and I get that. If you feel the same way a year from now, I would be very surprised.
Click to expand...


I know its pieced together.
 
Well that was my concern too. But still OR is almost finished. They just need a better display with higher resolution, higher refreshrate & more FoV. Everything else should be complete.
 
Faith said:
Well that was my concern too. But still OR is almost finished. They just need a better display with higher resolution, higher refreshrate & more FoV. Everything else should be complete.
Click to expand...

Curved OLED, custom aspect ratio, wider horizontal FOV.

Doable now.
 
I was disappointed in the announcement but this doesn't really bother me on second thought. If the Oculus becomes an advertisement-ridden piece of shit with deep Facebook integration, the gaming community (especially PC gamers) will drop it so fast for the next device that actually gets it right. I'll have my fun with DK2 and, assuming CV1 and beyond are terrible, move on to whichever competing headset is best and doesn't screw with the gaming experience.

And there will be many competing devices, especially if Facebook/Oculus drop the ball and leave lots of money on the table from displeased gamers. I don't care about who did it first or pointless brand loyalty to a bad product.
 
Fuck it. I'll just enjoy my DK2 for what it is and maybe even try and create something for it, but as soon as the whole project becomes compromised because of Facebook's interference, I'm out. Oculus no longer has my loyalty, but they still have my attention. For now.
 
My real concern is that whatever patents Oculus had are now Facebook's, and this could potentially stiffle competition.

Still excited for the DK2 and the idea of VR but significantly less excited by Oculus as a company (or what was once a company). I agree it'll be sometime before the things folks are worried about that they associate with Facebook could potentially materialize.
 
52club said:
From my experience the less people you have to convince of a strategy the easier it is. I don't disagree in both cases people are out to make money. It is just that the number of people trying to make money is much greater in one. This can lead to more agendas, which can stifle creativity since agendas often involve corporate politics.

I'm curious for those of you questioning my opinion, if you think this will lead to a better outcome for the consumer?
Click to expand...

I think it will. Every big paradigm shift needs some large investment. As it stands, as much I loved the Rift, it was going to be a niche product (still is) but now it's going to be delivered to the masses. Once that happens you have grades and levels of what the consumer product will be. Just like any other display you have top of the line and you have bottom of the line. Where does that leave OR itself? Who knows, but it's moving forward faster than we could have hoped even if it is with an evil faceless corporation. If only the angels at Samsung, MS, Sony, or Google would have bought them!

Seriously, I don't see how this is bad in the next couple years, by then we'll have competition and if FB/OR want to stifle creativity and ruin their headstart causing many to jump ship (can easily happen) to another competitor, then so be it.

What I do know is that a company with the reach into almost 1 billion peoples view now has a stake in what I think is one of the most important shifts in technology. Somebody had to do it.
 
LaneDS said:
My real concern is that whatever patents Oculus had are now Facebook's, and this could potentially stiffle competition.

Still excited for the DK2 and the idea of VR but significantly less excited by Oculus as a company (or what was once a company). I agree it'll be sometime before the things folks are worried about that they associate with Facebook could potentially materialize.
Click to expand...
FYI, Oculus doesn't have any patents.

The only way Facebook can turn this into any profit is by enabling Oculus to build a great platform with great hardware that everybody wants to use.
 
EVIL said:
FYI, Oculus doesn't have any patents.

The only way Facebook can turn this into any profit is by enabling Oculus to build a great platform with great hardware that everybody wants to use.
Click to expand...

Ah, then obviously I retract that concern. A coworker today mentioned that they held multiple patents, and I took it at face value.
 
Al13n said:
And where does pessimism fall under?
Click to expand...

Depends. Sometimes it can be a realistic response to the world. We don't yet have enough information to form an informed opinion. So all there is... is faith. Or pessimism.

Pick your poison.
 
E-Cat said:
Depends. Sometimes it can be a realistic response to the world. We don't yet have enough information to form an informed opinion. So all there is... is faith. Or pessimism.

Pick your poison.
Click to expand...

Pessimism is not realism, pessimism always expects a bad outcome.
Faith is somewhere between pessimism and optimism and more fitting :P

I really had a bad feeling when I read the news yesterday. It still feels very unreal to me.. I kept telling myself that this was part of one big marketing April fool or something.
But we'll have to learn to accept it, and give it the benefit of the doubt. I'm still betting my money on Oculus (instead of any other VR product like Morpheus).
 
What about skepticism? That's where I'm at, I wouldn't be against buying the consumer version if everything turns out okay but doesn't mean I know that it'll be okay
 
gazele said:
What about skepticism? That's where I'm at, I wouldn't be against buying the consumer version if everything turns out okay but doesn't mean I know that it'll be okay
Click to expand...

I'd say skepticism is in between as well, but more leaning toward the pessimistic side opposed to faith that is more leaning towards the optimistic side.




Oh god what are we talking about :P
 
I wonder if DK2 is still "feature complete" now that they have the option of building their own custom parts. What if their positional tracking system changes?
 
Few relevant tweets (sorry if already posted):

Nate Michel
We had two roadmaps: plausible and impossible. This partnership means the impossible roadmap just became ‘very likely’.
Click to expand...

John Carmack
I have a deep respect for the technical scale that FB operates at. The cyberspace we want for VR will be at this scale.
Click to expand...

Also a very good post by Tycho at PA:
The Nexesse
Before yesterday, The Oculus Rift was technofetish gear. It ceased to be so in an instant. If you want to know how you get to the future described in books, any of the futures, it happens when technology has broad social meaning. I’m not going to tell you it’s not fucking weird. I’m as surprised as anybody. I don’t like the idea of a fully three dimensional banner ad anymore than you do. But do you want to live in a society where telepresence and virtual reality are… normalized? This is how that happens. I used the shitty, old Rift, and I thought I was underwater. Think of every corner they had to cut because they were trying to make this thing in the finite realm of men. Now imagine the corners restored, and the corner cutting machine in ruins.
Click to expand...
 
Come to think of it, with so many people cancelling their pre-order, I think anyone who pre-ordered in the first few hours of the 19th are a shoo-in to be in the first batch.

That's a positive. :p
 
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