It dosent look good for the oculus rift they have stopped selling due to no longer being manufactured - but in the meantime they don’t have the necessary materials to produces new developer kits. Also with Sony bringing its ne vr headset out it dosent look good.

Do you have a link to this?



SC

It's a temporary halt: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-02/24/oculus-rift-shortage

Still worrying at this stage especially when Sony will be announcing there vr soon

Oculus just raised $75 MILLION to further development a couple months ago. They were the top exhibit at all the recent electronic shows and their HD prototype has received massive praise from everyone who tried it. They are also leaps ahead of any others right now with hundreds of games supported through both third party drivers and natively. I wouldn't worry about a temporary shortage in dev kits...

And now Facebook just bought it for $2 BILLION.



<edit> Early conscious on this buy out makes me feel like it really could be the end of the Rift, I'm not a fan of having Facebook close the Rift and integrate all their social things into it or restrict its use to specific games, as they seem to plan.

And so Facebook takes it out of the realm of reality social networking into the realms of fantasy social networking.

Seen it all with Second Life where users run around with twenty something avi's silky blonde hair and are all built like athletes. In reality they are actually sitting on their butt at home, never get any exercise and are bald, fat and fifty and that's just the women, guy's are even worse. Most users on there think you join to hook up and no other reason so it's an uncomfortable experience at best for any innocents thinking they might make new 'friends'.



Facebook is probably already approaching the number one cause of divorce and suicide among those hooked on social networking, and it seems there is no way of forcing them to get a grip on their less ethical users, despite their so called 'Terms of Service' and numerous lawsuits pending against them. This will just make it all worse and you can guarantee it will all just turn into a porn fest. Social networking in virtual reality using avatars is simply a smokescreen for saddo's who don't have a real life and the anonymity makes it a hunting ground for the perverted.



Before anyone say's "its all some people got" I realise that, but Facebook isn't the best company to do it.



BTW a company who took money from Kickstarter pledgers then dump them for a company like facebook to wrap it all up has no moral or ethical fiber at all, guess 2 billion will do it, it still raises the question "did they make the effort" which seems to be Kickstarters get out for not meeting promises.



Me too

That's one of the issues I have. I've seen this numerous times now; companies use KS to get the funding going, then once it's there and their "gadget" is out in the spotlight...they sell out to the highest bidder. I don't believe that's what pledgers signed up for, especially if they have an issue with the one purchasing the rights to said "gadget". To be sure, they're catching hell for the decision right now. We'll have to see how it plays out; but I have a hard time supporting a company that basically uses a community to get rich by selling out. Getting rich on your own merit, I have no problem with at all. But be honest about it up front.



After M$ purchased TrueSpace back in the day, then abruptly killed it; I have little faith in any large corporation's ability to see past their noses. Things like this make me glad that things like Blender are around and open source.

I'm not sure how Facebook buying the kit is so bad, as long as anyone who paid for the Kickstarter has the stuff promised of course. I hate facebook as an app and never really use it. Still, hopefully they wouldn't be short sighted enough to stop games dev work for it, but it certainly raises questions.



I wonder what TGC think after spending time supporting it?



Edit - @ Rolfy Hah. I played Second life a few years back. Thinking I might start making stuff and selling it. I was more than surprised at the goings on there! It's a very odd place indeed. Still, I was intrigued with the things you could make. I once saw a Super Stardust arcade game (looked very similar) you could buy for people to play in your little part of the world! You could even earn cash from it in an arcade setting. Although most people preferred gambling games. I found the scripting to be horrible though and soon gave up my quest.

@Dvader yeah, it is entirely possible to make good money in there, particularly selling media to builders. Many folks like to have their own sims and either build these themselves or pay someone to do it for them. These places can be hard to find as they

I agree with you, Rolfy; scripters should be compensated for their work if they so desire, just as anybody doing any kind of work. They add functionality to the engine that wasn't previously there. Without their efforts, a person would be forced to either do it themselves, find a workaround, or do without. Either way, it involves time, or else there is no reward. Time and rewards have value! (Disclaimer: I am NOT a scripter (yet) nor am I an artist (yet); I'm simply an interested bystander)

@rolfy I actually was agreeing with you the whole way until you got to the part where you would lock down the script. That is a huge no no, I am paying for the script.. not just the action of the script. If I buy it I also want to learn from it. Almost

Rolfy .. don't forget kaneva as well with all the supermodel avatars run by 13 and 14 year old children. sadly though it is downgrading all the time and pushing away users by taking away working parts to replace with buggy untested junk. With the permanent death now of Realm Crafter as well as death of Abyssal the choices are getting smaller. (Although I got lucky to acquire Abyssal before it died.)

anything that keeps the OR alive is a good thing in my opinion.

It reminds me of back in the late 80's when they thought VR would be a big thing but it failed because of the massively oversized headsets causing neck injuries. It would be a shame if the Oculus fizzled out because of economic reasons.