As you might have heard last week, virtual reality was the big theme at the Game Developers Conference, and one of the big players was the Oculus Rift, Oculus VR’s amazing 3D virtual gear. We managed to try it out with a number of games – and even pitted it head-to-head against Sony’s just-announced Project Morpheus – but we were still left wondering just what the future would hold for it. Now, we have a much better idea.
Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CE of Facebook, has announced the acquisition of Oculus VR and its Rift technology for a whopping $2 billion, which will help give the social site an edge in the gaming market.
“Our mission is to make the world more open and connected,” he said in a. Facebook post. “For the past few years, this has mostly meant building mobile apps that help you share with the people you care about. We have a lot more to do on mobile, but at this point we feel we’re in a position where we can start focusing on what platforms will come next to enable even more useful, entertaining and personal experiences. This is where Oculus comes in.”
Oculus was quite pleased with the deal as well. “We are excited to work with Mark and the Facebook team to deliver the very best virtual reality platform in the world,” said co-founder and CEO of Oculus VR, Brendan Iribe, in a press release. “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.”
No word yet on when the Oculus will arrive at retail, but with this major partner in tow, you can expect the word to spread on it quickly. Now, if we could just play Hawken again…
