Social media giant Facebook has announced that it will acquire Oculus VR in a $2 billion deal.
”Mobile is the platform of today, and now we’re also getting ready for the platforms of tomorrow,” said Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook. “Oculus has the chance to create the most social platform ever, and change the way we work, play and communicate.”
The final deal includes $400 million in cash and 23.1 million shares of Facebook common stock, while also providing for an additional $300 million earn-out in cash and stock based on the achievement of certain milestones. It will see the same technology utilised for the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset leveraged in ”communications, media and entertainment, education and other areas”, according to a statement from Facebook.
In a separate post, Zuckerberg was quick to point out that release plans for the Oculus Rift gaming headset would not be interrupted. ”Immersive gaming will be the first, and Oculus already has big plans here that won’t be changing and we hope to accelerate,” said Zuckerberg. ”The Rift is highly anticipated by the gaming community, and there’s a lot of interest from developers in building for this platform. We’re going to focus on helping Oculus build out their product and develop partnerships to support more games.”
“The partnership accelerates our vision, allows us to execute on some of our most creative ideas, and take risks that were otherwise impossible,” said Oculus creator Palmer Luckey in a post on Reddit, going on to state that ”Oculus’ somewhat unpredictable future just became crystal clear: virtual reality is coming, and it’s going to change the way we play games forever. I’m obsessed with VR. I spend every day pushing further, and every night dreaming of where we are going. Even in my wildest dreams, I never imagined we’d come so far so fast.”
Oculus VR was originally a Kickstarter backed product that raised an impressive sum of $2.4 million, with the project subsequently receiving large sums of money from several investors. After a well-received showing at CES 2014, this latest development ensures that the next few years will be a very interesting time for the burgeoning virtual reality industry.
