Facebook Acquires Oculus VR for $2 Billion

Facebook announced Tuesday that it acquired Oculus VR, the company behind the Oculus Rift gaming headset in a cash and stock deal valued at $2 billion.

The terms of the deal include $400 million in cash and 23.1 million shares of Facebook common stock.

The Oculus Rift project gained prominence on Kickstarter, raising over $2 million in the summer of 2012. The company went on to raise more than $91 million in venture funding in 2013. With this exit, the Oculus Rift is easily the most successful Kickstarter project of all time.

"Oculus has the chance to create the most social platform ever, and change the way we work, play and communicate," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement.

Although the Oculus team was never committed to bringing a consumer version of its VR headset to the market, more than 75,000 developers had already ordered developer kits for the technology — and the early prototypes we've seen look amazing.

Facebook says that Oculus will remain headquartered in Irvine and will continue developing the Oculus Rift platform.

This is Facebook's second major acquisition in less than two months. Last month, Facebook acquired WhatsApp for a staggering $16 billion.

On an investor conference Tuesday evening, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg discussed why he was so interested in the Oculus team and the Oculus Rift.

For Zuckerberg, it's all about the future. If mobile is the current computing platform, vision and virtual reality could be platforms of the future. Zuckerberg described buying Oculus as "a longterm bet on the future of computing."

This is a sentiment echoed by Chris Dixon, an investor at Andresseen Horowitz, the company that led Oculus VR's $75 million Series B funding round. On his blog, Dixon described his research into virtual reality and Oculus as a company. He writes, "the more we learned, the more we became convinced that virtual reality would become central to the next great wave of computing."

The idea that Oculus represents the future of computing isn't relegated to just investors. Shane Hudson, a London-based web developer, says he thinks that Oculus has the ability to offer up a " fully immersed experience." Hudson thinks that experience could extend from tasks such as "playing a game, watching a film, reading a book or even chatting your friends 'face-to-face' despite being on the other side of the world."

Hudson works with data visualizations and he sees the Oculus Rift as giving an entire new way of working with that kind of data. "It's a very interesting technology that could go in any number of directions, much as the web did," Hudson says.

That's what Zuckerberg thinks too. He sees Oculus's current focus around games and entertainment as just the beginning. "Oculus has the potential to be the most social platform ever," he said. "Imagine not just sharing moments with your friends online but entire experiences."

Zuckerberg also said that buying Oculus was a way of investing in the best and brightest players in computing. He said Oculus is "years ahead in terms of technology" but that "all the best and brightest in the space already work there."

Over the last two years, the Oculus team has amassed tons of talent, including many of the best minds in virtual reality and in gaming. John Carmack, the co-founder of id Software — and the lead programmer of Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Quake, joined Oculus in Aug. 2012 as its CTO.

Original Oculus Rift founder and designer Palmer Luckey was just 19 when he came up with the first prototype for the Oculus Rift. Luckey worked at USC's Institute for Creative Technologies in the Mixed Reality lab, contributing to research and development of virtual reality systems. A head-mounted display aficionado, Luckey's original Oculus Rift prototype caught the attention of Carmack, who was doing his own research in VR.

The other Oclulus VR co-founders, Brendan Iribe and Michael Antonov, previously founded Scaleform, a vector 3D rendering engine acquired by Autodesk in 2011. Iribe, Oculus VR's CEO, almost passed on Oclus, before seeing the technology.

"I said, 'Virtual reality never works—I'm not interested," Iribe told Fast Company. After meeting with Luckey and seeing the demonstration, he had a change of heart. "It was probably one of the most powerful moments of my life. Right away, I knew it was gonna change the world, and I wanted to be a part of it."

After a successful Kickstarter run and a round of funding, the Oculus team quickly amassed talent from across disciplines. The Oculus team is brimming with experience in the game industry and in virtual reality, ranging from commercial applications to flight simulators for the Navy and NASA.

On the call, Iribe said that he and the Oculus team are thrilled to be "building the future with Facebook."

Moreover, Iribe says that he's excited about "bringing even greater resources to our work." Competition in the VR space is just beginning — with Sony's Morpheus headset already turning heads (pun intended) and other players expected to enter the space in the next year. With Facebook, Oculus now has a parent company with immense resources and a CEO dedicated to helping accelerate its visions for computing of the future.

Of course, not everyone sees a Facebook-owned Oculus VR as an appealing future. Markus Persson, creator of Minecraft and known online as Notch, is disappointed with the development. Persson shares his thoughts on his blog, revealing that the Facebook deal will put an end to plans for an official Minecraft port for the Oculus VR.

Similar sentiment is cropping up from other game developers. Of course, Facebook has faced this kind of backlash before. After Facebook announced it was going to purchase Instagram, users threatened to leave the service en masse. Not only did users not leave, two years later, Instagram is more popular and more successful than ever before.

Zuckerberg is clearly hoping the same situation will take place with Oculus VR. For him, a little backlash is nothing in exchange for, what he describes in his words, as a "longterm bet that immersive VR is the future."

IMAGE: ROBYN BECK/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

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Oculus Rift Unveils New Virtual Reality Headset for Devs to Play With

Game developers interested in creating games in virtual reality will get an upgraded set of tools from the Oculus Rift team this summer, the company announced Wednesday morning.

The second-generation Oculus Rift development kit is available for preorder starting Wednesday for developers. The virtual reality headset, which began as a Kickstarter campaign in 2012, now has 50,000 units in the hands of developers interested in creating games for it.

Oculus VR Vice President of Product Nate Mitchell said doesn't resemble anything like consumers will eventually see, but is much farther along the company's vision for virtual reality than the previous Oculus Rift model. A consumer version is still not under discussion, he added.

"We've learned a lot of lessons from our original vision," Mitchell said.

The new Oculus Rift headset solves many users' latency issues; it eliminates the motion blur problems that were easy to spot if you moved your head too quickly. It features a brighter, higher-resolution OLED screen with a 960 x 1080p resolution over each eye, rather than a 640 x 800p resolution over each eye on the current kit.

The new headset also boasts improved positional tracking, part of the Crystal Cove prototype the company showed off during CES 2014. Mitchell said that such new features will allow developers to bring many more complex elements into games they produce for virtual reality, including text and UI layouts. Previously, both were previously very difficult to add.

The new headset will cost $350 for developers and will ship sometime in July of this year.

Virtual reality may be the belle of the ball at the Game Developers Conference this week. Sony also used the conference to announce its own virtual reality headset for the PlayStation 4, currently called Project Morpheus. Sony remained mum on setting a date for its headset to reach consumers.

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Sony Brings Virtual-Reality System 'Project Morpheus' to PlayStation 4

Sony is jumping into the virtual-reality field, bringing its own system called "Project Morpheus" to the PlayStation 4.

Sony Worldwide Studios President Shuhei Yoshida announced Project Morpheus at a Tuesday evening session at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

"The game industry has grown by leverage experiences that people didn’t know they were expecting or think were possible. We push the boundaries of play," Yoshida said. "Nothing elevates the level of immersion better than VR. It delivers a sense of presence."

He added that Sony had been exploring virtual reality since 2010 at its research and development unit. Yoshida showed off pictures of prototypes from Sony Computer Entertainment America's Santa Monica Studios, which used a PlayStation Move controller strapped to the head for motion tracking.

Sony said it is already working with the following companies on virtual reality: Crytek, Epic Games, Autodesk, Havok, Criware, Unity and Wwise.

The company's current developer kit has 1080p display and a 90-degree field of view, according to Anton Mikhailov, a software engineer with Sony Computer Entertainment's research and development team. "It's not a final thing, but a good sweet spot for developers right now."

Mikhailov said the headset will work with the PlayStation Move controllers, the DualShock 4 and the PlayStation Move camera.

In the past year, virtual reality has become a crowded field for gaming, but no products are available yet for consumers. The Oculus Rift virtual-reality headset has been in developers’ hands for about a year. Yoshida said on Tuesday night that he had an “enormous amount of respect” for Oculus VR. The company declined to comment on Sony’s announcement.

Sony did not announce a price or timeline for consumer availability for Project Morpheus. Game developers will be able to view the headset starting Wednesday on the GDC show floor.

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This Is the World's Top-Earning App

Line's active user count might be an enigma, but the latest edition of the App Annie Index shows outside of games, Line was the top earning app and publisher in the world in 2013.

Line ranked ninth in the list of most downloaded publishers in the world. It's the sixth most-downloaded app outside of games.

According to the report, Japan surpassed the US as the top country in terms of app revenue, driven largely by games on Google Play. That means Line's home market likely helped push it to the top of the highest earners list.

Within Japan, Line's game lineup took seven of the top ten highest earning mobile game spots, beaten only by fellow Japanese game Puzzles and Dragons. Line and Line Camera are the two most-downloaded apps in the country outside of games.

The popular Japanese messaging app and social platform might well be making more money than any other chat app out there, as well.

The hole in App Annie's data, however, is WeChat, which started monetizing from stickers, games, and in-app payments last year. App Annie pulls its data from Google Play and the Apple App Store, which means its stats for Chinese Android apps are likely skewed. Google Play is seldom used in China because it can't be installed on most phones sold within the mainland. Much like Line's mammoth revenues likely originate from Taiwan and Japan, WeChat's likely originate primarily from mainland China. So while both apps are technically top earners globally, they remain regional kings in a fragmented global space.

Here's a few other interesting observations from the App Annie Index:

> Japanese publisher GungHo Online and its game Puzzles and Dragons are the top-earning publisher and app in the world, respectively (merchandising not included).

> South Korea bumped the UK off the podium to be the third-highest earning country in app revenue.

> China's Alipay was the second most-downloaded payment app in the world, despite skewed China rankings.

> Outside of games, three Chinese publishers made the top ten most-downloaded app publishers: Sungy Mobile (third), Tencent (eighth), and Baidu (tenth).

Beijing- and US-based analytics firm App Annie is used by over 350,000 apps to track downloads, revenues, and rankings.

This article originally published at Tech in Asia

Image: MICHAEL PROBST/ASSOCIATED PRESS

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Iconic '80s Game 'Simon' Gets Modern Touchscreen Twist

The iconic game Simon holds a very special place in the hearts of those who grew up in the '70s, '80s and '90s. Childhood wouldn't have been the same without the hours spent slapping colors — and hearing that hypnotic beeping — in the back seat of your parent's Volvo station wagon.

Now, Hasbro is introducing a new version of the memory game with a very modern twist: touchscreen swiping. (Buttons are so 30 years ago.)

Instead of just remembering which colors to tap next, users will have to know when to swipe too.

“The Simon brand was extremely popular in the '70s and '80s, so we’re excited to reintroduce the game to a new generation,” Jonathan Berkowitz, VVP of marketing for Hasbro Gaming. “The Simon Swipe game combines favorite elements of the classic game like colors, lights and sounds with today’s touch technology and “swipe” action to offer kids a bold new way to play.”

The first big change you’ll notice is the steering wheel-like design, which includes a place to hold your hands around the base. This makes it especially easy to play Simon Swipe’s new "Party" level, a multi-player feature where you can take turns passing the device back and forth. With flashing lights and the disco dance music it plays in between turns, the Party version is especially fun to play in the dark.

The game also comes with three other play options: Classic (no swiping), Extreme (both tapping and swiping) and Levels, which starts easy and builds in difficulty (up to 16 levels). Trust us, even getting past the seventh sequence in Levels is a major accomplishment. It's that hard.

In future Simon iterations, we'd love to see the game come with an app with programmable sequences, allowing you to pick color patterns that can be shared with others. Just think of all the headaches you could have caused a sibling or friend in the back of that car.

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The 7 Most Beautiful Indie Games

We haven't seen such a boom of innovation and great ideas in video games since the independent PC games of the 1990s. Dozens, if not hundreds, of beautiful indie games have impressed millions of eager players, and these seven are some of the most gorgeous artistic works small teams have produced in recent years.

These games span many platforms — whether you have a PC, Mac, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, iPad or even Linux, you’ll find something to check out here.

As always, beauty is in the eye of the beholder — and seven is far too small a number to represent the diversity and creativity in the indie game scene today.

1. Flower

Thatgamecompany (TGC), run by Jenova Chen, Kellee Santiago and other big names in the indie scene, had a productive run in tandem with Sony’s game studios, making games for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and Vita since 2007.
Flower followed the 2006 experimental Flash game flOw, and was later succeeded by the magnum opus of the series, Journey. While all three games had something beautiful and moving to say, Flower is arguably the purest of the three.
Flower was originally released on PS3, but this past holiday season it hit the Vita and PS4, too. The PS4 version’s enhanced visuals make it an even greater treat.
IMAGE: THATGAMECOMPANY

2. Braid

The game that put controversial game developer Jonathan Blow on the map plays with themes of loss and making up for past mistakes with a time-traveling game mechanic combined with Mario-like platforming.
Already a classic since its 2008 release, Braid stands out in part because of its artful visuals, whose swirling blue skies and pastel colors evoke impressionist painters. If you like Braid, keep an eye out for Blow’s next game, The Witness. It’s due to hit the PlayStation 4 within a few months.
You can pick up Braid on Xbox 360, Windows, Mac, PlayStation 3 and Linux.
IMAGE: BRAID/JONATHAN BLOW

3. Limbo

Flower petals and impressionism-style paintings are beautiful, sure, but there’s such a thing as a dark, foreboding beauty. Limbo nails just that.
The grim fairy tale of a young boy wandering through a ruthlessly hostile, silhouetted environment enthralls you with what you can’t see as much as it engages you with what you can. Just be ready to die — a lot.
Limbo is available on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Mac, Windows, Vita, Linux and iOS.
IMAGE: LIMBO

4. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons

A recent release, Brothers tasks you with controlling two boys as they wander from their village in search of a way to cure a loved one's illness. The highly stylized rolling hills, lived-in villages, and the quirky and mysterious characters populating the countryside all contribute to a lush, aesthetic experience.
So you can take it all in, the world's designers even dropped in stone benches on which you can sit your characters at the most scenic viewpoints.
Brothers is available for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows.
IMAGE: STARBREEZE STUDIOS/505 GAMES

5. Proteus

Las year's Proteus is the most experimental and out-there game that appears on this list. The retro aesthetic won’t work for everyone, but the dynamically generated environments full of bizarre, surreal and impressionistic signs of life have impressed and soothed many an adventurous gamer.
It only takes a few minutes to complete the game, but as with the famed Minecraft, each time you play it you experience a different world with variance in the arrangement of the numerous creatures and locales.
Proteus is available on Windows, Mac, Linux, PlayStation 3 and Vita.
IMAGE: PROTEUS

6. Lili

Lili borrows as much from free-roaming RPGs like The Legend of Zelda as it does from other casual iPad and iPhone games, so it hardly fits into either the "casual" or "hardcore" categories. Let’s call it "middlecore."
In Lili, you play as a young woman walking around a seaside community filled with odd characters, who will probably remind you most of the work of famed animated Hayao Miyazaki. It’s a relaxing game, and the verdant 3D visuals go a long way in creating that effect. To power its cartoony look, the game runs on the Unreal Engine, long a standard-setter for advanced 3D graphics on many platforms.
Lili is currently only available on iOS devices, but a PC version recently graduated through the Steam Greenlight program -- so sit tight if you aren't an Apple user.
IMAGE: BITMONSTER GAMES

7. The Unfinished Swan

Sony really made waves in the indie community by turning its Santa Monica studio into an incubator for ambitious indies. One of the best games to come out of the studio is Giant Sparrow’s The Unfinished Swan, a truly original experience.
When you start, you find yourself standing in an all-white world. You quickly learn that you can splatter black paint on the walls and objects around you to discover your way through the environments. The complexity grows from there, but the game’s minimalism really makes an lasting impression.
You’ll need a PlayStation 3 to play The Unfinished Swan.

IMAGE: GIANT SPARROW

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Sony Ventures Into Oculus Rift Territory

Sony may move into the territory market dominated by the Oculus Rift and other virtual-reality headsets with an upgrade to its head-mounted display. With a prototype head tracker attached, the visor-like entertainment device becomes an immersive game environment.

The company's HMZ-T3W headgear has been around since September of last year, although it was designed to be primarily a video device. The idea is you slip on the display (which makes you look like Cyclops from the X-Men), sit back and press play. The headset will create a virtual 750-inch (!) screen in front of your eyes, complete with surround sound, giving you a cinematic experience wherever you are.

A head tracker, which Sony showed a prototype of at CES 2014, takes the experience to the next level. With the tracker, which is located right behind your head, the virtual environment it creates can respond to your head movement — perfect for games or even interactive videos.

We got a little eyes-on time with the upgraded headset. The display definitely immerses you, and although it's not quite the same as looking at a real screen, you get used to the "virtualness" of the screen quickly.

I watched some video captured from a race car, which was specifically created for the headset. As the road, spectators and landmarks whizzed by me, I could turn my head side to side or up and down to see more of the environment. The video wasn't a complete 360-degree view, going black if I turned too far, but there was next to no latency, and the headset's OLED screens did a great job of producing a bright, sharp picture.

Sony has no info on if or when its head-tracking version of the headset will become available, but you can buy the regular HMZ-T3W today for $998.

Image: SONY

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10 Gaming World Records That Put Your High Score to Shame

Warning: Your once-impressive gaming achievements are about to become meaningless.

The Guinness World Records 2014: Gamer’s Edition just published, and it proves that gamers kept busy in 2013. From mind-bogglingly quick gameplay to the absolute hardest achievements in gaming, it was a year of impressive virtual feats.

Here are 10 of our favorite gaming records from the past year. Do you think you have what it takes to beat them?

1. Largest Collection of Video Games

Image: Guinness World Records

If you have a buddy who loves to "borrow" your games and never return them, introduce him to Michael Thomasson. The Buffalo, N.Y., native’s game library houses 10,607 titles for 104 different systems.

Thomasson estimates that the million-dollar collection, some of which he admits he hasn’t played yet, cost him less than $5,000.

2. Fastest Call of Duty: Black Ops II Flag Capture

As part of YouTube’s 2013 "Geek Week," gamers Roc “Outconsumer” Massaguer and Alistair “Ali-A” Aiken set a new world record — by capturing the flag in Call of Duty: Black Ops II's overflow map in one minute and 52 seconds.

The most impressive part of the feat? Massaguer did it all blindfolded, with Aiken shouting directions to him.

3. Largest Gaming Tournament

The 2013 FIFA Interactive World Cup holds the record for the largest gaming tournament, drawing in 2.5 million participants, with only 21 finalists advancing to Madrid, Spain to compete for the title.

Last year’s winner was Bruce Grannec from France, earning his second title following a prior victory in 2009.

4. First Official Fan Convention for a Video Game Character

The Summer of Sonic Convention has grown rapidly since its inception in 2008, with the 2012 convention selling all 400 tickets in just three minutes. Fans of the blue hedgehog can attend this year’s convention in Tokyo and Osaka, Japan.

5. Longest Marathon With a Dance Video Game

Image: Ryan Schude, Guinness World Records

Here’s something to shame you into keeping that “stay in shape” 2014 resolution: Carrie Swidecki from Bakersfield, Calif., played Just Dance 4 for 49 hours, three minutes and 22 seconds.

In case that didn’t hit you right away, that’s almost 50 straight hours of dancing. As in, more than two whole days. Let’s all take a moment to imagine that cardio workout.

6. Best–Selling Video Game

The best-selling video game of all time isn't the latest COD or GTA — it’s Wii Sports. The family friendly title came bundled with the Wii console and sold over 81 million copies as of August 2013.

Wii also holds the best-selling sports game title (excluding bundled titles such as Wii Sports) with Wii Fit, which has sold 22.75 million copies.

7. Most People Playing Angry Birds

Sure, a lot of people enjoy the mobile game, but do you like it enough to travel to Malaysia to play one level? That's what 2,030 people did. The event, organized by Malaysia’s Nokia branch, saw 10 hours of continuous gameplay, with each participant playing one level only.

8. Fastest Completion of Batman: Arkham City

Image: Ryan Schude/Guinness World Records

Gamelengths.com lists the average game time for the latest installment in the Batman series as 23 hours.

But Sean “DarthKnight” Grayson doesn't consider himself an average player. His fastest play-through of the game was a mere two hours, three minutes and 19 seconds.

9. First Video Game in Space

The Russians beat us to this one, too. The first game in space was the Game Boy version of Tetris, packed by Cosmonaut Aleksander A. Sererbrov for his trip to the MIR Space Station. Serebov’s copy of the game sold for $1,220 in 2011.

10. Rarest Achievement in Portal 2

PC users had an extra challenge with Portal 2's “Talent Show” achievement, which has been labeled as the most difficult achievement to gain in the beloved puzzle game. Co-op players must complete the sixth chamber of the Mobility Gels co-op course without dropping a single cube.

Only 1.5% of Portal 2 PC gamers had accomplished the feat as of June 2013.

Image: Flickr, joo0ey

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