Facebook To Acquire Oculus VR Inc for $2 Billion
by Ian Cutress on March 25, 2014 6:25 PM EST- Posted in
- News
- Oculus Rift
Back in September 2012, a $2.4 million Kickstarter campaign finished to help develop the next wave of immersive gaming in Oculus Rift. The premise behind Oculus Rift is a virtual reality headset that puts you deeper into the game than any other headset has ever done before. Since that Kickstarter campaign news about Oculus has penetrated all of technical media in terms of the development, the nature of the device and what sort of games are going to be able to use it. I remember a few images of Brian and Anand trying the Crystal Cove prototype at CES this year.
The news today comes as a shock (to me at least) – Facebook has announced today that it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire Oculus VR Inc at a $2 billion dollar value. This includes $400 million in cash and 23.1 million shares of Facebook stock (~$1.6 billion on last 20 day average).
Oculus will keep their headquarters in Irvine, CA and continue development on the Rift. With Facebook moving to the help (it is unclear at this point just how much of a role they will play), the focus may shift towards a more social scenario and future for the device, alongside the anticipated action game genre.
The deal is expected to be completed during Q2, and we are awaiting further information as to the depth of the acquisition and how each firm will operate under the new structure. Facebook should have a lot of money from its IPO in order to help drive Oculus investment, perhaps accelerating the process.
Source: PRNewswire
"We are excited to work with Mark and the Facebook team to deliver the very best virtual reality platform in the world," said Brendan Iribe, co-founder and CEO of Oculus VR. "We believe virtual reality will be heavily defined by social experiences that connect people in magical, new ways. It is a transformative and disruptive technology, that enables the world to experience the impossible, and it's only just the beginning."
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B3an - Tuesday, March 25, 2014 - link
Very very bad news. The internet is going nuts over this shit, it would be really funny if i wasn't so disappointed.Deelron - Tuesday, March 25, 2014 - link
I still think it's kind of funny, but I do realize that makes me a bad person.I do feel bad for the people supporting oculus, having tried one I could see it being pretty damn neat for people interested in such a thing.
jay401 - Tuesday, March 25, 2014 - link
Every douchebag marketer out there is now drooling over the thought of shoving obnoxious ads right into your eyeballs.ciparis - Tuesday, March 25, 2014 - link
Nooooooooooooooooooooo!f0d - Tuesday, March 25, 2014 - link
social experience? facebook? urgh....one of the things i was really looking forward to in gaming is now down the drainhole... freakin "social experience"
Zink - Tuesday, March 25, 2014 - link
Very sad. Oculus doesn't have consumer hardware, games, or any users and already Facebook is trying to set up some greedy business model where they will be able to recoup the billions they invested. Why couldn't they make their own platform to compete with Sony's version while letting Oculus be a collaborative community platform?superkev72 - Friday, March 28, 2014 - link
Except FB doesn't actually control Oculus. FB owns the stock but the BOD is equal representation so they are still independent. I'm sure there are provisions in there preventing BODs replacement for a long time. No doubt you will see little or no influence from FB here for a really long time.rogueninja - Tuesday, March 25, 2014 - link
I guess we'll become hypocrites and call VR gaming a gimmick now.Rexyl - Tuesday, March 25, 2014 - link
Noooooo, fecking Facebook ruining everything. So much for the VR dream. Hopefully Valve comes out with their own model but I'm sure every competing company that's currently developing one right now has enough patented that no single model can be a good experience.tviceman - Tuesday, March 25, 2014 - link
If Oculus was fishing for a buyout like this, Valve missed the boat.