Facebook to acquire Oculus VR for $2 billion

[Tophat Dragoneye]

Facebook is acquiring Oculus VR for $2 billion, including $400 million in cash and 23.1 million shares of stock valued at a total of $1.6 billion, Facebook announced today.

According to a press release from Facebook, the company plans to expand the Oculus Rift headset's applications beyond gaming to broader fields such as media, entertainment, communications and education. At the same time, Facebook wants to "accelerate" the company's growth in the gaming space. The deal is expected to close during the second quarter of 2014.

"Mobile is the platform of today, and now we're also getting ready for the platforms of tomorrow," said Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, in the press release. "Oculus has the chance to create the most social platform ever, and change the way we work, play and communicate."

This is Facebook's second multibillion-dollar acquisition in as many months. In February, the company announced it had purchased messaging provider WhatsApp for $16 billion.

The rest of the article is over at Polygon: Link

To be honest, I'm a bit skeptical about this. Sure, they get 2 billion dollars from this, but I'm not sure whether or not Facebook is going to implement some sort of social opt-in, which could scare away both developers and potential users.

At any rate, many of the original backers of Oculus Rift are none too happy about this and have vented their frustration on the original Kickstarter page: Link

Also, Notch, the creator of Minecraft, has withdrawn his support for the device and canceled plans for porting Minecraft to Oculus Rift.

 

[Muur]

Is it bad that I don't know who they are?