Wrong and Right Reasons To Be Upset About Oculus – with Carmack response
Carmack had this to say earlier, in a 3-part Tweet:<p><i>"Everyone has had some time to digest the FB deal now. I think it is going to be positive, but clearly many disagree. Much of the ranting has been emotional or tribal, but I am interested in reading coherent viewpoints about objective outcomes. What are the hazards? What should be done to guard against them? What are the tests for failure? Blog and I'll read."</i><p>Also, this:<p><i>"I would expect Facebook to not exert any overt control over Oculus unless Oculus fumbles badly a few times, at which point they SHOULD."</i><p>~~~~<p>My personal take: At the end of the day, it takes more than vision and hard work to drive a dream into existence... it takes <i>investment</i>. It takes <i>capital</i>. This is what the deal brings to the table.<p>Not only that, as you probably know by now, Michael Abrash has joined the team. I mean, read Michael's blog and note all of the technical challenges and issues with implementing VR. Read Carmack's technical writings on latency issues. There are a lot of problems to solve, on top of building and delivering a solid, commercial-quality hardware and software experience. For example, there is tracking head position and orientation, rendering without shearing and judder, latency issues, etc... everything must be perfect in order to deliver the perfect experience.<p>Facebook brings the needed investment, plus the scaling infrastructure experience to the table. John has said, <i>"I have a deep respect for the technical scale that FB operates at. The cyberspace we want for VR will be at this scale."</i><p>I have a lot of confidence in Oculus VR and their extremely capable team. These good people are experienced and they know the technical and business challenges that are ahead. This is why the acquisition occurred.<p>The passion is still there. I mean, watch this video again [1]. John hasn't changed. After the acquisition, he said, <i>"For the record, I am coding right now, just like I was last week. I expect the FB deal will avoid several embarrassing scaling crisis for VR."</i><p>And with Michael coming on board, it's a veritable VR Dream Team with the already talent-heavy team of Palmer Luckey, Tom Forsyth [2], Atman Binstock [3], et al.<p>As Michael said, <i>"That worry is now gone. Facebook's acquisition of Oculus means that VR is going to happen in all its glory."</i><p>[1] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYa8kirsUfg" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYa8kirsUfg</a><p>[2] <a href="http://www.oculusvr.com/blog/category/tom-forsyth" rel="nofollow">http://www.oculusvr.com/blog/category/tom-forsyth</a><p>[3] <a href="http://www.oculusvr.com/blog/welcome-atman-binstock-chief-architect" rel="nofollow">http://www.oculusvr.com/blog/welcome-atman-binstock-chief-ar...</a>