Oculus Wants to Use Facebook to Build a Billion-Player MMO

[Zauxst]

Well the good part is that we still have google+

 

[Strazdas]

they wont become Facebook VR they said. fech....

All i got to say is TOLD YOU SO.

Remember kids, if the CEO of the company announces that it wants to use it's owners infrastructure, it's probably the parent company trying to ruin our special thing because we have all the ownership of the company because we bought a prototype.

But in all seriousness, 1 billion people is a stretch, that'd require disgusting amounts of server space that quite frankly no company would invest in.

More like the owner has forced the CEO to say this while forcing the infrastructure on them because thats better PR than saying the truth. Case in point - everything EA.

 

[Saetha]

Cultural standards can change, but not every invention brings about change. The Rift is not the first VR headset that has tried to make it into the mainstream. Or the second, or third, or fourth - and that kinda shows that the general public just doesn't buy into VR in the same way that gamers do.

The Wright brothers weren't the first ones to build an aircraft. Their early predecessors' failures didn't reflect on a lack of of public interest in the concept of flying, only a lack of ability to fulfill their promise in terms of engineering.

You could tell that people wanted to fly, through the plethora of dreams and fiction about flying, and for that matter, from the plethora of inventors who kept working on it even after so many failures.

Apple wasn't the first one to make a tablet, not by decades. Their early predecessors were heavy, with unresponsive touchscreens, low computing power, and no net to connect to. Their failures didn't reflect on a lack of of public interest in the concept of tablets, only a lack of ability to fulfill their promise in terms of engineering.

Mobile phones and television both had prototypes decades before they caught on.

VR seems to be one of those things. There is just something fundamentally, self-evidently superior about the idea of total presence inside virtual worlds, which explains why people keep waiting for it, keep making them, and keep glorifying it in fiction.

Maybe the Rift won't be that break even point. Who knows, maybe we are still one generation before that. But we are getting there, and that "we" includes a rather lagre segment of the public.

Yeah, but the Wright brothers were the first to succeed, though. The attempts at true flight prior to theirs failed. That's not the case for VR - there's been headsets before the Oculus that functioned fine, people just didn't care to use them for one reason or another.

And I actually feel like comparing them to Apple tablets is a very good analogy - that is an example of "futuristic" technology that we had working versions of, they simply didn't perform as well as hoped. But also, if you'll realize, Apple's tablets didn't really revolutionize anything. Bookstores maybe, but outside of that? It didn't bring about nearly the same change as personal computers or television did. You don't go into work and find everyone tapping away at iPads, they've still got their desktops and phones. Tablets didn't replace anything. They didn't fundamentally change society. Because tablets are simply a fancier way of doing stuff we can already do. Just as the Oculus Rift is. And sure, both of them have perks and conveniences over standard devices, but both of them have drawbacks, too.

I'm sure the Oculus Rift is cool, and it'll probably sell fine. But I'm with Jim Sterling on this one - it's going to end up in the same camp as motion controls and - waddya know - tablet computers. Neat gimmicks that'll make plenty of cash purely because of their novelty and "future" factor, but ultimately will end up just being a variation of the standard - and nowhere near as common.

 

[Alterego-X]

Yeah, but the Wright brothers were the first to succeed, though. The attempts at true flight prior to theirs failed. That's not the case for VR - there's been headsets before the Oculus that functioned fine, people just didn't care to use them for one reason or another.

And I actually feel like comparing them to Apple tablets is a very good analogy

I feel that the two analogies are more similar than you give them credit for. Sure, "not flying" is a more objectively visible type of failure than a tablet not having enough content, or VR not feeling sufficiently like reality, but the end result is the same: the public had one specific expectation from them, and they failed to do it.

There have been hundreds of testers reporting, that the Rift is the first HMD that actually felt for them like Virtual Reality. As far as I'm concerned, that's enough to say that it's the first one that could actually fly. Putting monitors in a box in front of one's eyes, is not revolutionary, that's a conceptual prototype, just like putting wings on a bicycle, or putting a touchscreen on a computer.

It is just the beginning of the engineering problem, that is making it fulfill it's purpose.

It didn't bring about nearly the same change as personal computers or television did. You don't go into work and find everyone tapping away at iPads, they've still got their desktops and phones. Tablets didn't replace anything.

Some people might still be using desktops for specialist purposes, but in as little as four years, tablets have very clearly started on a path to replace desktops and laptops as the all-puropose "personal computer".

That's not really comparable to motion controls that have showed up and disappeared into obscurity just as quickly. There is a difference between "gimmicks" that provide an entirely arbitrary novelty, and "gimmicks" that carve a new, massive, stable market for themselves, even if you still dismiss the latter just because it didn't "fundamentally change society". The ability to browse the net, watch movies, and read any text without a power-eating laptop or a tiny little cell phone, might not be the most awe-inspiring technological revolution, but neither is it a novelty that people will just get tired of and stop and decide not to do anymore because tiny little screens and suitcase-filling laptops are suddenly fashionable again.

The same goes for VR. Sure, you can relish in the knowledge that technically some people will still be playing games on monitors in certain contexts (for easy access, or for tradition), but it's pretty unlikely that tens of millions of people will buy working HMDs and then suddenly get bored with it a few years later and decide that they prefer their games inside a rectangle sitting right on the desk, instead of being present in them.

That's about as likely as the 1946 quote that I have previously repeated about how "People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night".

 

[Thyunda]

I would do a sword art online reference but it's too easy.

Try a .hack one.

 

[Saetha]

Snip

I never said that the people will get tired of the novelty and never use it after the initial wonder has worn off.I expect many people who enjoy the Oculus will use it for as long as it's serviceable. What I'm challenging here is your notion that the Oculus even has a chance of being to our society what television or flight was.

Firstly, flight was a whole new mode of transportation, it was entirely new territory - the Oculus is merely an expansion. Every experience it offers is offered similarly by a plain old screen. A play listened to on the radio is an entirely new experience from a play watched on television. A movie watched on your laptop is not an entirely different experience from a movie watched on a Rift. It's the same movie. And the Rift can't offer anything more than that. Which is where the difference lies - flight and television and the internet, these all offered entirely new experiences. The Oculus simply offers the same experience in a new way.

Secondly, if you honestly believe that tablets are replacing laptops... I have no idea what to say to that, really. Except that, no, they aren't. Have you ever tried typing up an essay on a tablet? Or copying down your lecture notes during a class? (Incidentally, the Oculus has this same issue. Try typing up a corporate email when you can't even see the keyboard) I mean, I'm writing this message on a laptop right now, while my iPad languishes in a suitcase somewhere - if it were so obviously superior, then shouldn't that be the other way around? The only advantages it offers over my "power-eating laptop" is that it's more convenient on vacations. For day-to-day time killing I use my phone, and for actual work or leisure time I use my laptop, because the advantages they offer (Portability and convenience for the phone, easier use and better power for the laptop) outweigh the advantages the "advanced" tablet offers me. To say nothing of the laptop's superior gaming abilities - I can boot up a game of Don't Starve while waiting for class to start, while you don't exactly see many Skyrim fans gaming on their Apple iPad. Which is not to say that tablets are a passing fad - they have their uses and their niche, but their advantages don't compensate for their drawbacks except for in certain situations (Such as travelling)

Thirdly, you're assuming an awful lot about people. Because actually, yes, there are going to be people who prefer their games "in a rectangle on their desk" for a number of reasons, many of which can't be solved because they're integral to the Oculus' design. Motion sickness and claustrophobia, for one, will only worsen for someone who moves to the Rift, an which issue which can't be solved with a simple headset. Design problems such as interacting with a complicated UI. And there are going to be people, such as myself, who dislike the lack of awareness of their surroundings - something which the Oculus, by it's entire purpose, is supposed to bring. And while they are issues with Oculus that may be solved, such as eye strain, there's no guarantee that they will be, or that such issues won't hinder the Rift's movement into the mainstream.

Don't get me wrong here, the Rift's probably gonna sell. It'll probably do great and rake in oodles of cash and every one will jump on the bandwagon trying to copycat it's success. But that's all it's going to be. And that's far from a bad thing - even that amount of success is mind-blowing. Which is why I don't understand this evangelist mentality some of the Oculus' supporters seem to have, that it'll completely redefine the way we interact with technology and the world. It's not the second coming. And it doesn't need to be. Being the new Wii is awesome enough.

 

[Vegosiux]

Wait, no talk about how this is "the future"?

I cynically suspect that FB are trying to bang on this in order to make it "too big to fail". And I'm just going to say it again, my brain has enough trouble dealing with one reality. Jumping between different ones is just going to make me snap.