The company makes the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset which has just been sent out to developers and is ushering in a new generation of gaming.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, confirmed the deal, which will be $400 million in cash and another 23.1 million shares of Facebook stock. Why did Facebook make the investment? Zuckerberg says:
This is where Oculus comes in. They build virtual reality technology, like the Oculus Rift headset. When you put it on, you enter a completely immersive computer-generated environment, like a game or a movie scene or a place far away. The incredible thing about the technology is that you feel like you're actually present in another place with other people. People who try it say it's different from anything they've ever experienced in their lives.
Oculus's mission is to enable you to experience the impossible. Their technology opens up the possibility of completely new kinds of experiences.
Immersive gaming will be the first, and Oculus already has big plans here that won't be changing and we hope to accelerate. The Rift is highly anticipated by the gaming community, and there's a lot of interest from developers in building for this platform. We're going to focus on helping Oculus build out their product and develop partnerships to support more games. Oculus will continue operating independently within Facebook to achieve this.
But this is just the start. After games, we're going to make Oculus a platform for many other experiences. Imagine enjoying a court side seat at a game, studying in a classroom of students and teachers all over the world or consulting with a doctor face-to-face -- just by putting on goggles in your home.
Many in the industry were very surprised by the move, which had not been rumored or speculated on in any capacity. Sony also just revealed their VR headset, "Project Morpheus," which will link up to the PS4. You can read Oculus' response here.
Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 25 Mar 2014 21:16
