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Facebook buys Oculus Rift for $2 billion, what does this mean for the mobile gaming compatibility?

Well this is probably the biggest surprise we’ve had in quite some time. Facebook has purchased the virtual reality hardware maker Oculus Rift for $2 billion. You’re probably wondering why in the hell we are covering this. We are because the Oculus Rift was going to have Android compatibility in gaming and now we have no idea what future this has, if any at all.

Most people are going to take this as the death of the Oculus Rift and honestly they wouldn’t be without cause. Facebook purchasing the Oculus Rift makes little to no sense unless the company plans to dump all of their gaming chips into it. While the Oculus Rift had a promising future on its own, announcing support for Android devices as well, developers who were making games for the devices have already fallen off including Notch who was developing Minecraft for the Oculus Rift.

We were in talks about maybe bringing a version of Minecraft to Oculus. I just cancelled that deal. Facebook creeps me out. I have the greatest respect for the talented engineers and developers at Oculus. It’s been a long time since I met a more dedicated and talented group of people. I understand this is purely a business deal, and I’d like to congratulate both Facebook and the Oculus owners. But this is where we part ways. – Notch via Twitter

Like we mentioned earlier in this article, we don’t know where any of the mobile compatibility previously announced is set to go, whether it is still on the plate of things to come or if it is horribly dead, laying in the street bleeding out. Interestingly enough Razer seems to now be courting Notch with something VR-related. This is obviously something that isn’t announced yet so it should be interesting to see what Razer as up their sleeve.

It looks like Facebook will be doing gaming related things with the Oculus Rift but a lot of their chips seem to lie in the social aspects that the virtual reality headset can provide. At least that is what we can tell from the statements released.

Zuckerberg says his company will help Oculus at the beginning with content partnerships: getting games on software working on the hardware. “But this is just the start. After games, we’re going to make Oculus a platform for many other experiences,” said Zuckerberg in a post on Facebook. “Imagine enjoying a court side seat at a game, studying in a classroom of students and teachers all over the world or consulting with a doctor face-to-face — just by putting on goggles in your home.”

It’ll be interesting to see how this all develops and works out. Comments? Leave them below as we are sure you have your opinions on this.

Website Referenced: The Escapist

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