14 DAY TRIAL // John Carmack, who is the current chief technological officer at the company making the Oculus Rift, says that he expected the Facebook acquisition to be a big step in the development of the virtual reality device and believes that the social company understands his vision of the future of the tech.
The developer has offered his opinion on the recent deal in the comments section of a blog post and states that, “The fairly rapid involvement of the Titans is inevitable, and the real questions were how deeply to partner, and with who. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting Facebook (or this soon). I have zero personal background with them, and I could think of other companies that would have more obvious synergies.”
Basically, Carmack is saying that Oculus Rift, despite the support from the community of enthusiasts who backed the project on Kickstarter and the money it then raised from other investors, could not create the device on its own and needed the involvement of one of the big companies that are currently dominating the tech world.
He adds, “However, I do have reasons to believe that they get the Big Picture as I see it, and will be a powerful force towards making it happen. You don’t make a commitment like they just did on a whim.”
After the acquisition was announced, many of those who backed the Oculus Rift initially said that they were seeking to recuperate their money, while Markus Persson, aka Notch, announced that he was no longer willing to work on a free Minecraft version that was supposed to be launched on the virtual reality headset.
Facebook has made it clear that, for the foreseeable future, it will allow the team at Oculus Rift, including John Carmack, to focus on the video game applications of the device they have created, but has said that it will also be used to enhance social interactions between users of the social platform.
During the Dame Developers Conference, the company revealed the second version of its development kit, which would soon be offered to those who are working on Oculus Rift experiences.
The current road map still aims to deliver a consumer version of the headset to regular customers before the end of 2014.
Sony is also working on its own VR tech, called Project Morpheus, for the PlayStation 4 home console and Microsoft is also rumored to be exploring a similar idea for the Xbox One.