Continuing his shopping spree, Facebook’s co-founder Mark Zuckerberg announced that he is adding virtual technology innovator Oculus VR to the list of Facebook acquisitions. Oculus VR is a leader in virtual reality technology and is known for creating futuristic virtual reality goggles.
For Oculus, Facebook will shell out $2 billion. The price would be paid in $400 million as cash and rest $1.6 billion in Facebook stocks. Oculus is now the second number in Facebook biggest purchases list, just after $19 billion entry of Whatsapp and just before $1billion entry of Instagram.
Virtual reality is a concept that is till now hugely covered in science-fiction but as far as the real technological advancements is considered, the concept is still in its infancy. However it has a very huge potential especially in the Gaming industry.
Why buy Oculus
In our previous post related to Facebook we talked about why Facebook bought Whatsapp. We summarized that the main reason behind buying Whatsapp was to increase Facebook’s user base. Buying Oculus on the other hand is very different. Its Facebook’s deeper foray into the gaming industry, which by the way is more than $93 Billion strong, more than the Hollywood and Bollywood industry combined. Facebook already has dedicated sections to games and Facebook app games like Mafia Wars and Farmville had contributed hugely to Facebook’s success. So now Facebook is looking into future of gaming industry and virtual reality is one branch of gaming business that shows huge potential.
What the future holds
Facebook is now the latest to invest in wearable technology segment. In addition they are foraying into device platform segment as well. Maybe Facebook will create a reliable virtual reality goggles platform so advanced and user friendly that it would may make smartphones obsolete. It’s a very wide speculation but it’s possible. And there is also the possibility that face can use this technology to create something that rivals Google Glass spectacles, if they become the next best thing. But that’s way in the future.
The immediate future is more about revolutionizing the gaming experience by creating a new immersive gaming platform. And here I quote Mark Zuckerberg,
“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.”
In other words the platform would be solely for gaming for now. So we can think on the line that the device may make X-box and Playstation obsolete. As the technology will evolve it will also be employed for education, research, medicine, and much more. But that’s a matter for the future. For now keep your finger crossed for the Rift platform that is under development by Oculus.
Rachit Agarwal
