Oculus taken over ... so who is next

[budda]

Hi,

Until Oculus was taken over by Facebook, it was reasonable to assume virtual reality was this subcultural geeky phenomenon that was in some backwater far away from the mainstream of public consciousness.

Now, with the investor/business spotlight on this Oculus takeover transaction, the money men will be putting the ruler over undervalued virtual reality properties, in a potential stake-your-claim gold rush grab.

There are some potentially good buys out there.

Emagin (publically listed) and Castar by Technical illusions (private) still look very promising and way undervalued. There are others with virtual reality headsets and virtual reality support services.

Place your bets gentlemen.

Thanks.

[3dpmaster]

What would happen with the DK2?

[White_fish]

One of the issues is since the Facebook acquisition (even before), Oculus Rift as monopolised in the VR industry. The question is how can smaller companies break into the industry and compete?

[Fredz]

By working hard on solving current problems, like Oculus, Valve or Sony have been doing for the past years. I guess there is still enough place for other HMDs, but they need to do the basics correctly (most don't unfortunately) and have distinctive features : wireless, mobile-based, wider FOV, higher resolution, two displays, tiled optics, etc.

[White_fish]

Right true, but wouldn't be hard in terms of investing money to find the solution? Then finding investors to help you sell it in a consumer friendly price?

[Fredz]

Depends on what people want to tackle. There are several alternative designs that wouldn't cost much in parts and would need a minimal amount of time investment to validate the concept. Just look at the InfinitEye design (dual panel + Fresnel lenses).

But if people are looking for investment before having an idea for the implementation of a concept it's certainly doomed to failure, like most knocks-off I've seen lately.

[Hannibalj2]

The only way I see it is making an open software structure that everyone can use regardless of hardware. Think about it like a mouse, anyone can make a mouse or a keyboard and use it on the windows, mac, platform. A universal software structure platform must be created. if Oculus now Facebook controls the structure, then you have another monopoly.

Anyway, it was very obvious month before the announcement that something of this nature was going to happen. 60 Million here, then other millions from others. All the indicators where there.

[White_fish]

I know they changes to the privacy policy for Whatsapp. Has Facebook influenced the Oculus yet?

Source
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/05/05/ ... cy-policy/

[DannyVR]

Well, if this VR legal stuffs get too complicated.....
http://allvirtualreality.com/news/zenim ... us-vr.html
http://allvirtualreality.com/news/oculu ... ty-ip.html

...perhaps we can see sooner or later Facebook will also acquired the ZeniMax Media and force all the
games under this company's subsidiaries to be Oculus Rift's compliant.

[White_fish]

that's a scary thought. But also good for VR gaming!
Apparently Oculus and facebook plan to make an MMO, with billions of people.
Reckon this could be successful?

[Fractalys]

I can't find anything about this, however a startup based around project ARA & android could very well become a real contender against Facebook/Oculus. It seems inevitable that Google will acquire such a startup. Stereo camera, battery's, screen or anything else up-gradable that would be nice.

Game engines like Unity and UE4 could be acquired by outsiders of the gaming industry.

[White_fish]

Oh sorry, I meant they planned to.

Here's the link,

http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/5/568423 ... h-facebook

[Fractalys]

Nintendo bought something for 100 mln could this be castar?
They seem like a good fit for family/tabletop games.

[turilas]

Well there is Sulon Cortex potential competor with Oculus Rift and they release it ridicously fast with their current budget (end of the year and dk in month or couple) so i think they got alot money to put in it but developing it takes time.

[Fredz]

The Sulon Cortex is basically a mobile attachment that cost $500 (others are under $100) and it suffers from very bad latency according to people who tested it. I fail to see how it can be any competition to the Oculus Rift.

[turilas]

The Sulon Cortex is basically a mobile attachment that cost $500 (others are under $100) and it suffers from very bad latency according to people who tested it. I fail to see how it can be any competition to the Oculus Rift.

How about AntVR then ? https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/80 ... =discovery

[Fredz]

I've contacted them to correct inaccuracies on their Kickstarter page, so basically to me there are basically the same than True Player Gear. False advertisement (100° FOV when it's in fact only 80°x60°), no real VR platform, false advertising for positional tracking (impossible with only an IMU) and announce to support existing games when it's simply not possible to provide a good VR experience this way. In any way inferior to the DK2 and the future CV1. Not interested.

[budda]

Hi,

The Chinese cannot be discounted as players in the virtual reality headset market.

They have the manufacturers, the engineers, the population base and with Alibaba being floated to the potential tune of $200 billion, they could become a serious force.

Yahoo owns 25% of Alibaba. This makes Facebook and Oculus Rift start to look small.

Its only the beginning of things to come.

Thanks.

[Fredz]

It's not a question of money, it's a question of knowledge and vision. The Kickstarter page for their product lack both.