Zuckerberg recently announced that they will be buying Oculus, the brains before the Rift headset, for about 2 billion in cash, and which includes 400 million as well as 23.1 million Facebook shares.
In a statement, Zuckerberg explains this acquisition of Oculus, in saying, “The incredible thing about the technology is that you feel like you’re actually present in another place with other people. People who try it say it’s different from anything they’ve ever experienced in their lives. Oculus’ mission is to enable you to experience the impossible. Their technology opens up the possibility of completely new kinds of experiences.”
He goes on to say that Oculus will continue to stay focused on gaming while operating independently of Facebook initially but there’s no doubt that the company will expand into a number of other areas shortly.
What this means that with the goggles that Oculus has created, in particular for gaming, this will move to situations that could include consulting with a doctor face-to-face, watching a game courtside or studying in a classroom with students and a teacher and so on and so forth.
Experts believe that one reason why Facebook is making this acquisition in the second quarter of 2014 is because it wants to stay on top of trends in gaming, where its own offerings in social gaming has been the reason why the social media platform has caught on.
Oculus, alternatively, understand why it not seem obvious as to why Facebook has decided to partner with them and explain that the reason for this is because both companies see virtual reality as the next step in computing.