tnylab wrote:Well, Oculus needed money to help them make their public version of the Rift as good as possible for mass market.
Valve does not seem to need money from others any time soon, they already have Steam for that.
Facebook's deal with Oculus wasn't an investment; it was an acquisition. This is great for VR and immersive technology in general because it's a strong statement of future market valuation - they really did everyone a wonderful service. I don't pretend to know what the ramifications are of such a deal. When a company gets acquired for $X dollars, it's unclear to me if that money just goes to the shareholders as a buy-out and future funding is derived from Facebook's quarterly financial purse (i.e. the $2 billion investment has nothing to do with Oculus' day to day financial operation), or if this acquisition funding is expected to be somehow put back into the company. I have no idea. I really think a deal like this would have happened eventually anyway; it's just a question of whether it was a matter of months or years. This is what we call an "exit strategy" for venture capital investors. It's not a statement of the company's product development intentions or future; it's about how the investors get a fast return on their investment without necessarily having to wait for the company to turn a profit. I think this is all standard procedure when the opportunity presents itself, and it was a really good opportunity.
The Valve scenario is just a fantasy analysis on my part. However, with Valve working hard to launch their Steambox initiatives and directly/indirectly break into the console market + their demonstrated interest in VR and immersive technologies, Facebook could do much worse than buying Valve. Maybe I'm reading way too much into things, but I also think Mike Abrash's transition to Oculus was way too easy. Maybe I watched too much X-Files in my youth.
Did George Lucas need the money when his company was sold to Disney? I think not.
Anyways, this is just fun and games on my part. There are definitely exciting times ahead for everyone in this market.
Regards,
Neil
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