When the consumer version of the Oculus Rift ships sometime in the near future, it’ll come complete with a big Facebook logo as Mark Zuckerberg’s technology empire has purchased Oculus VR for $2 billion. Somewhere, Jesse Eisenberg is jumping for joy as his future portrayal of Lex Luthor just got a lot more credible.
I kid, I kid, but Zuckerberg plans to expand the Rift’s focus beyond games to also include “communications, media and entertainment, education and other areas.”
“Mobile is the platform of today, and now we’re also getting ready for the platforms of tomorrow,” Zuckerberg said. “Oculus has the chance to create the most social platform ever, and change the way we work, play and communicate.”
Speaking to Polygon, Oculus VR founder Palmer Luckey said that the deal will enable the company to procure better components at a keeper price and, ultimately, deliver a better version of the Rift: “There are things that piles of cash and having a $100 billion plus company behind you can do that you can’t do on your own. Overall, it’s going to be a better product at a lower price.”
However, not everyone is happy with the news. Markus “Notch” Persson revealed that he was in talks with Oculus to develop a version of Minecraft for the virtual reality headset. But he later tweeted that that deal is now dead because he finds Facebook “creepy.” An expansion on his thought process can be found on his official website.
So what’s next for Oculus? According to a Reddit post by Luckey, “We can make huge investments in content.”
