Mark Zuckerberg Reveals Oculus VR As Long-Term Investment
Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckereberg, offers some insight into how he expects Oculus and VR technology in general to progress into the next phase including investments in several major deployments primarily around the mobile space, such as WhatsApp, video and Internet.org at Facebook's Q3 Earnings and Conference Call.
Oculus has recently come up with their prototype, Crescent Bay, bringing VR a step closer to consumers. With a rapid increase in the number of users connected to the internet through mobile devices like smartphones, there is expectation that there will be large-scale sale of VR units to consumers- upwards of 50-100 million units, so that the technology can have significant investment from every angle, hinging on Gaming's contribution to the VR worlds.
A substantial portion of Facebook's increasing percentage of Monthly and Daily active users- nearly 66% of their 1.2 billion monthly active users access it through their mobile devices. This trend has ensured that many mobile platforms, especially Whatsapp is taken seriously. Among Facebook's other major investments are Video and Internet.org, which are significant long term investments complimentary to the goal of making technology accessible to increasing number of people all over the world. With the integration of a much broader and encompassing number of technology users, the focus and impetus to make it available for commercial uses is possible.
On Oculus specifically, the strategy in it's subsequent deployment is tied together with Faceook's long term investment plans, in the form of a much wider ten year plan- as opposed to a three or five year plan, as highlighted by Zuckerberg in the conference. "It's still early for Oculus," Zuckerberg said. "As I've said before, with Oculus, we're making a long-term bet on the future of computing. Every 10 to 15 years a new major computing platform arrives... Virtual reality and augmented reality are an important part of this platform "
Facebook is currently working with both Oculus technology for personal computing and Samsung Gear VR in making VR technology widely available. There is a lot of focus in many potential applications the technology can offer. "Our efforts here will take longer to achieve their full impact, but we will prepare for the future by continuing to invest aggressively," Zuckerberg said, speaking not just of Oculus but also Internet.org. "It's still early for Oculus."
With projects spanning across several epic game engines by gaming giants- like Valve's Source; Unreal engine,Unity engine, etc., there are expectations of incredible content and some groundbreaking projects to explore in the future.