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The Problem with Facebook and Virtual Reality
- acconrad 8y agoVR does seem like the logical next device frontier for Apple, but Oculus really has a significant early-mover advantage. I don't agree that it's exactly a mistake to have bought Oculus, but I do think we're still 5-10 years out from mass adoption (which also makes it a great time to get involved as a tech person and claim your niche!)
- news_to_me 8y agoWhy doesn't Apple just buy Oculus off of Facebook? Seems like a good match to me.
- jarsin 8y agoI'd rather they just buy SNE and get the best selling VR headset along with the best selling game console, movie content, music content, mobile components, etc, etc, etc :)
- pjmlp 8y agoGiven how Apple game consoles sold in the past, better not.
- lozaning 8y agoI can only imagine how expensive Apple branded Memory Stick Dues would be. All the expense of apple mixed with Sony's love for proprietary stuff. Count me out for this one.
- jarsin 8y agoAll I hear is ka-ching ka-ching ka-ching. Music to investors ears :)
- toast0 8y agoWhen has first (early) mover advantage been used successfully against Apple? Certainly not in portable music players, smart phones, or smart watches. I have no doubt Apple could convince people it invented VR as well.
- ChicagoBoy11 8y agoNah -- they'll called it immersive reality or digital reality or something like that and people will go apeshit with this paradigm-shifting tech.
- dkrich 8y ago> When has first (early) mover advantage been used successfully against Apple? Maps, streaming music, video, voice assistant, home speakers, browsers...
- swlkr 8y agoApple’s strength is hardware, but you’re right they are behind in these areas
- wlesieutre 8y agoSpeaking of hardware, Apple's A-series processors have a significant lead over Qualcomm's Snapdragon, which Oculus is stuck with for their standalone Quest headset. If they do make a VR / AR headset, that's going to translate into better performance and/or longer battery life than their competitors.
- taeric 8y agoWatches and fitness trackers are doing well against them. That said, convergence is huge and I wouldn't bet against them.
- npunt 8y agoDepends on how you interpret the data. IDC's latest report shows growth from Chinese brands (Xiaomi & Huawei) selling pretty basic wearables to Chinese audiences, but Fitbit & others have been dropping, and Garmin is only slightly up (4.1% to Apple's 38.4% YoY growth). The big split the report cites is as markets mature they want more sophisticated wearables, which plays to ecosystem strengths of Apple. Garmin et al (even Android smartwatches) aren't likely to create / purchase the tech that can compete since Apple seems to be pouring big $ into health tech, so I'm not sure the future looks good for other brands. https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS44247418 https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS44247418
- buboard 8y agoin what way? Oculus is still an extremely niche product that even hardcore gamers are reluctant to buy, waiting for better veersions.
- cjCamel 8y agoI don't think Apple are behind on the tech for VR/AR. They have the pretty much everything they need in place to release a mobile VR or AR device when they choose to. They've probably already got the AR developer mindshare, and no-one is near them for mass adoption of mobile wearable tech (watch+ear buds).
- cjCamel 8y agoAlso, hello from a fellow Conrad!
- artemisyna 8y agoThe author of this article makes an interesting argument based on historical fit, but I do wonder how his perspective would change if he viewed the Oculus acquisition in the lens of a 20-year investment for FB.
- aetherson 8y agoIs there any evidence at all that Facebook has a 20 year timeline about, like, anything?
- artemisyna 8y agohttps://www.facebook.com/Oculusvr/videos/272240096742532/ https://www.facebook.com/Oculusvr/videos/272240096742532/ - Go to about 1:15. Maybe not 20, but having a 10 year goal and being able to give direct updates 2 years in isn't bad. :)
- georgeecollins 8y agoThe author points out that Apple made their watch without a strategy, and let the market figure out what it is useful for. But then he says that Oculus has a problem because they have a use case in mind for their VR. Maybe, but I think the real reason why they have to push mobile based VR is that it is the only kind of VR that has a chance to get to a critical mass of users, because of cost and ease of use. Without a critical mass of users, you can't have software developers creating products to figure out the good use cases.
- r00fus 8y agoApple Watch was meant to usurp Fitbit's market and has succeeded. While Apple may have dreamed of killing the luxury market its clear they had designs on the fitness market, doubled down on the series 2 and kept marching forward.
- brlewis 8y agoDisclaimer: I work for Fitbit, but don't speak for Fitbit. According to the article below, an estimated 52% of Apple Watch sales in 2017 were Series 2 or earlier. So in 2017 the most appealing feature of an Apple Watch was a lower price. This is not a sustainable business model. You could find older Apple Watches during the holidays for $200. What Apple is trying to do, and I dearly hope they succeed at it, is to create a product so appealing that people will buy the latest edition at full price. I think such a success would take pressure off Fitbit's market. My personal opinion, though, is that Fitbit's product lineup in 2018 ia better positioned than ever to compete with deeply discounted Apple Watches. Of course there's the Fitbit Versa, but smart features are even getting into the basic tracker line with Charge 3 getting app notifications, and Charge 3 Special Edition getting NFC payments. https://investorplace.com/2018/02/holiday-apple-watch-sales-record/ https://investorplace.com/2018/02/holiday-apple-watch-sales-...
- segphault 8y agoI have a Rift, but I've never purchased any content from Facebook's marketplace. I use Steam, because that's where my gaming library lives. As long as the headset is tethered to a computer, Valve is going to capture the content distribution revenue. Facebook had to make a standalone device, because they never had a chance of monetizing anything other than the hardware itself on the desktop. I think this is a point that is often overlooked. Given the Facebook's generally poor history of ecosystem stewardship, I don't see why any gaming enthusiast would even want them to be the arbiter of VR content distribution. Valve is far from perfect, but I'd much rather give my money to them than Facebook.
- roymurdock 8y agoFacebook isn't going after the gaming market (long term), from what we've seen in their demos, they are targeting the enterprise (read:$$$) near-term with virtual meetings. Long term they are targeting casual entertainment consumers (read:non-gamers) with events such as virtual sports/movie viewing and more immersive news/videos such as their VR tour of Puerto Rico [1]. Facebook is much better situated to work with non-game enterprises and entertainment licensing/distribution companies than Steam. Not that I want Facebook to excel here, I don't use Facebook or Instagram and personally I find the thought of VR business meetings/news/friendships pretty distasteful, but just a 3rd party observation. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/09/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-puerto-rico-virtual-reality https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/09/mark-zuck...
- kevin_thibedeau 8y agoNot going to happen if Facebook login is required.
- sebringj 8y agoThe Quest is a fantastic direction to go in making immediate playability and usability in real-world space with more than one player in the same area and without the PC/wires which is the problem with the other headsets. The Go is just too minimal and no 6dof so its like a loner airplane use to pass the time that makes you ill. We know the Wii was fun and Nintendo never needed amazing graphics, it just had to be reasonably priced, function well and be fun to play with friends. Check check check. Sorry Iribe.
- olivermarks 8y agoI don't own any VR gear and haven't explored, but isn't this one of those tech 'adoption' areas that is driven by porn, like VCR's were? FB & porn don't seem like good bedfellows, as it were...
- lozaning 8y agoWhat ever happened to that program where you text Mark your nudes so he can keep them safe?
- wlll 8y agoI've owned an oculus rift DK2 and have owned a Vive since the pre-order days and as far as I can tell VR is almost entirely not driven by porn. The problem is you can't just simply film a scene (be it porn, regular film, or some sports thing) with a couple of cameras and send it to someone to experience on a headset. People need to move their heads around, and fixed camera positions don't allow for that. When someone moves their head and their view doesn't move they start to feel sick. There's possible ways around this. Light field tech, or CGI actors etc, but neither of those are quite there yet. As such, porn as it exists in VR today is effectively just putting a really really big screen in front of you in VR. It's not actually VR.
- wincy 8y agoThat’s not exactly right. The immersive stereoscopic is pretty crazy. I had my wife try it and she said “the human race is going to go extinct!” You can’t move around, but the experience of a part of your mind thinking “wow this gorgeous woman is HERE” is EXTREMELY compelling.
- i_made_a_booboo 8y agoI second this. It's pretty fucking out there.
- mortenjorck 8y agoI haven't looked into this too deeply, but given that all the major VR platforms are walled gardens with policies against explicit sexual content (Steam, Oculus Experiences, Playstation Store, and the App Store and Play Store for phone-based VR), I don’t see how adult entertainment publishers would get onto them in the first place.
- saagarjha 8y ago> Apple also has the right business model: it can sell barely good-enough devices at a premium to a userbase that will buy simply because they are from Apple, and from there figure out a use case without the need to reach everyone. As far as I can tell, this is only really true for Apple Watch. I don’t think this can be called a “business model”.
- vonnik 8y ago> In other words, the virtual reality market is fundamentally constrained by its very nature: because it is about the temporary exit from real life... I enjoy VR a lot, but I never put on the goggles. A friend explained it to me the other day in a way I finally understood. VR requires us to disconnect from everything around us in a way that few technologies do -- that is, the cost of VR on our social interactions and situational awareness is almost total, which is a much greater price than other technologies force us to pay. They went full immersion, and it was too far... There's a certain irony that a social network bought deeply anti-social hardware. And yes, before we start talking about MPORGs, I know that could be social in VR. But I'm talking about the social costs IRL, which are much less with a technology like AR.
- zaidf 8y agoIt is bold of Stratechery to make a longterm bet against any face-based device. The press of the 90s and early 2000s was laden with writers claiming in essence that there won't be any smartphone revolution. They'd have ample of proof from a wide range of mobile hardware products that failed spectacularly -- from the Newton to the Palm Pilot. Then we got the iPhone.
- biswaroop 8y agoI didn't read a long term bet against a face-based device. He focuses on facebook's value as an app-based stimulant, and how VR occupies a completely different (and possibly limited) niche. In fact, Stratechery claims that AR is more promising, and that Apple is well-poised to create a face-based device. His main point is: unless the face-based device joins us in our every day activities like the smartphone, it's not going to be directly useful to facebook.
- zaidf 8y agounless the face-based device joins us in our every day activities like the smartphone, it's not going to be directly useful to facebook Isn’t that obvious / circular reasoning? It’s basically saying “unless people start using VR a lot and it becomes more than a niche, it won’t help Facebook.”
- overgard 8y agoI really have trouble seeing VR becoming mainstream for two reasons that really have nothing to do with technology: * Real world space. I know personally I'd have to sell some furniture to make it practical in my apartment. I think a lot of young people are in the same boat -- if you live in a major city and you're young it's hard to really afford enough space for this kind of thing. I'm not gonna rearrange my living room for it. * Weird movement. Like, most games are either vehicle based or use some sort of teleportation mechanic. There's a really hard limit on what you can do with VR without making a lot of people really sick; and even if you solve the motion-sickness you still have a situation where you're tethered to a specific spot with a limited amount of movement before you walk into a wall. I don't really see the enterprise usage either. How is it that much of an improvement over a webcam and a google hangout?
- sigi45 8y agoI would first think about what mainstream means and than if or how it is relevant for VR. Companies will and already using it for training. There are VR experience centers. Porn and gaming will keep people playing around with it. It will become easier to use, with more content, lighter and cheaper. Good VR is a crazy experience but not cheap. Let's wait a few years.
- sigi45 8y agoFunny to see someone analysing Zuckerberg this way. I always think "some student, lucky, got unbelievable rich with a very simple product" Zuckerberg is rich that's it. They can afford playing with VR so they do.