Facebook Unceremoniously Kills Off 'Oculus' Brand (techcrunch.com) 50
Earlier today, Mark Zuckerberg announced it's changing Facebook's name to Meta. While he said Facebook's existing brands wouldn't be changing, we have learned that's not entirely true. "In a lengthy Facebook post, CTO-in-waiting Andrew Bosworth detailed about 15 minutes later following the completion of the keynote that as part of the new rebrand, they will be killing off the Oculus brand," reports TechCrunch. From the report: Oculus phrasing was conspicuously absent from the presentations today and features like the Oculus Store were consistently referred to as the Quest Store. In his post, Bosworth details that starting early next year the process to rename the Oculus app to the Meta app and the Oculus Quest to the Meta Quest will begin. "We all have a strong attachment to the Oculus brand, and this was a very difficult decision to make. While we're retiring the name, I can assure you that the original Oculus vision remains deeply embedded in how Meta will continue to drive mass adoption for VR today," Bosworth wrote. Facebook bought Oculus VR back in 2014 for $2 billion.
At the time, Zuckerberg said the Oculus Rift VR headset was the beginning of something big: "This is really a new communication platform. By feeling truly present, you can share unbounded spaces and experiences with the people in your life. Imagine sharing not just moments with your friends online, but entire experiences and adventures."
At the time, Zuckerberg said the Oculus Rift VR headset was the beginning of something big: "This is really a new communication platform. By feeling truly present, you can share unbounded spaces and experiences with the people in your life. Imagine sharing not just moments with your friends online, but entire experiences and adventures."
Facebook is Cancer? (Score:5, Insightful)
Who wouldn't blame me for making a joke about Facebook metastasizing into a digital carcinoma like Alphabet?
Pretty pathetic when we've seen this before with Microsoft of course. At least they wanted a monopoly on the software front with dipping into first party hardware creation from time to time.
In comparison, Facebook could have done more R&D with making their own branded crap. Might not pay off initially, but it gives some leverage on where to start with hardware creation.
Re:Facebook is Meta? (Score:1)
Dude, stop being so meta.
Re: (Score:2)
Metastabook.
Re:FFB (Score:5, Insightful)
It feels more like something written by a PR firm in conjunction with a legal firm. "Rebranding" is the kind of thing you do after you're chemical spill killed all the penguins.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"Rebranding" is the kind of thing you do after you're chemical spill killed all the penguins.
I guess none of Facebook's PR people have ever watched that one South Park episode [youtube.com].
Re: (Score:2)
> "Rebranding" is the kind of thing you do after you're chemical spill killed all the penguins.
Of you are a chemical spill, you bloody well should change your name.
Same shit, different name (Score:3, Interesting)
Because changing a name is going to magically erase the CEO calling [esquire.com] his customers "Dumb Fucks", leaked [nytimes.com] data, exploiting, manipulating [youtube.com] people and profiting off of people's data! /s
I guess we can retire the FecesBook joke and start call it:
Mark's
Ego
Too
Arrogant
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
I don't think you understand what branding means. Rebranding is what companies do to boost their share price and secure the hearts of investors. It has nothing to do with the CEO being the same toxic shit they always were.
Eternal coronavirus lockdown (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine sharing not just moments with your friends online, but entire experiences and adventures
I can imagine. I've done things like climb mountains, visit parks, solder chips, burn toast, and enjoy sunsets with my friends. It's called "real life."
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
It's called "real life."
VR is real life. It's just another part of it. Not sure why you outright dismiss one thing you can actually do in your life while supporting other things as if one experience is more "life" than another.
If your thing is to sit around and burn toast with your friends, then more power to you weirdos. I prefer to shoot my friends in the face with a railgun.
How many times do we have to watch VR fail? (Score:1)
From the 90s to now, it always ends the same. People think it's so cool until they try wearing that big heavy thing on their face for a few hours. It doesn't help that apps and games have to be made specifically for the device to have good functionality - in other words, nothing works. Normal reality is already screwed up enough - maybe facebook should work on fixing that instead.
Re:How many times do we have to watch VR fail? (Score:5, Insightful)
Your description sounds like you haven't tried VR since the 90s.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
no lol. More headsets get sold each year, and the software keeps getting better.
Re:How many times do we have to watch VR fail? (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be easier if the leading product and development group that was spearheading the revival hadn't been literally eaten by a sociopathic corporate behemoth.
Oculus was doing pretty dang good driving the renaissance of consumer VR. They got John Freaking Carmack to jump ship from id Software. They got Sony to enter the market with a respectable, affordable plug-and-play system for the world's most popular gaming console. There was a tailor-made SKU of Skyrim that shipped for VR, for chrissake.
And then Palmer Luckey was a fucking idiot and took The Zuck at his word, and that was the beginning of the end of it.
Valve isn't really shipping games anymore, so when they finally quietly left one on the front porch, HL: Alyx didn't have anywhere near the hype to move a shitload of Vive headsets. Some of the other systems - the Index, the Microsoft one (I don't even know its name, couldn't care either), a few others - are barely a drop in the bucket because they were targeting the edges of the market that Oculus was supposed to stake down. Without that, they probably didn't even recoup the cost of the soda in their break room.
The Zuck dreams of being Halliday and is too busy being a sociopath and crashing Western Civilization to realize he's actually Ted Faro from Horizon Zero Dawn.
Re:How many times do we have to watch VR fail? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
IMO, Oculus' sale was necessary. Not to Facebook specifically, but to somebody big.
Back then there was a lot of concern (which I shared) that VR was a promising technology but in a huge danger of being done badly. The DK1 was barely a proof of concept, and the DK2 was barely tolerable for actual usage. Oculus needed a lot of money and a lot of tech to make something people could actually enjoy using. What they had was very interesting to a few nerds, but wouldn't have had any mass appeal. On their own I don
Re: (Score:3)
It doesn't help that apps and games have to be made specifically for the device to have good functionality - in other words, nothing works.
Maybe you should actually try some games before spreading your ignorance. No kiddo, you don't need to be made specifically for the device to have good functionality. Basically most first person games require little more than minor input tweaks to work very well with effectively perfect functionality in VR. And that's before you consider VR as a visual medium alone allowing you to move your head for increased immersion.
You sound like your belief is that VR can't bring anything to the table unless it's an exp
Re: (Score:3)
Saying it's happening won't make it happen.
Sony had a successful PS VR1, to the extent there's a PS VR2, they're not doing that for their health.
Hash Tags (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Or, maybe God will just make another drunken bet with the Devil, and brutalize you terribly just for giggles.
So easily proven stupid. (Score:2)
Now search for "Meta"
It will be hell finding a place that sells "Meta" and anything that works with "Meta".
Re: (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure this is a deliberate move for a later online community and trademarking of the term "metaverse".
Re: (Score:2)
That might be the point. Facebook seems to be giving about a 60% discount on Oculus hardware versus their competitors to convince people to put up with Facebook. Maybe they're hoping to get that down to 30%.
Zuck needs... something. (Score:4, Insightful)
I think Zuckerberg's headband on his Oculus is a little too tight.
This will go nowhere. People won't want to just be Disney toons in the boardroom.
To be a true metaverse, it has to be open, free, any anyone can host a node.
That would bring every aspect of human aspiration and depravity.
Issues of in-world currency, copyright, sex, gambling, furries, naughty bits, violence, censorship...
Do they really want to take that on?
Re: Zuck needs... something. (Score:3)
Yes, I too have played VRChat
Re:Zuck needs... something. (Score:4, Insightful)
I think Zuckerberg's headband on his Oculus is a little too tight.
This will go nowhere. People won't want to just be Disney toons in the boardroom.
To be a true metaverse, it has to be open, free, any anyone can host a node.
You really think so? If this is the case, then why do people choose phones over computers, closed source over open source, automatic over manual. In reality, only a bunch of nerdy men want open and free, the rest want convenient, and the best way to achieve convenience, in many cases, is to hand over the controls to someone else.
Fun while it lasted John (Score:2)
John Carmack now dried, stuffed and glued to the front of the Facebook company bus as official figurehead.
Given the Meta Logo looks like a pair of bollocks (Score:3)
How about Zuck? (Score:2)
"Zuck is Human" to try to convince gullible people he is a human. It's his sociopaths company so Zuck sounds best to me... SocioFace?
VS logo (Score:3)
It's not that they can't support it anymore (Score:2)
It's that they hate you.
Re: (Score:3)
Consider you useful idiots- I could agree with that.
I'm out (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd feel queazy about buying hardware from Facebook, whether Oculous, meta watches or whatever. I kinda like the camera Ray-bans that came out, but I don't want something like that tied to cancerous Facebook.
Re: (Score:3)
I kinda like the camera Ray-bans that came out, but I don't want something like that tied to cancerous Facebook.
Dude they're not even water-resistant. So when someone throws a glass of water in your face for videotaping them without permission your expensive toy is gonna fizzle. Even if they weren't sold by faceboot they would be an idiots-only buy.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I am preparing to get a VR, and researched Oculus and Valve a while back. I got sticker shock at Valve (~$1k), but didn't like the closed ecosystem of Oculus. Still, at a quarter of the price, I thought...then I discovered that Oculus had been Zucked when I wasn't paying attention. So, no VR this year. I hear Valve is looking to come out with a junior version so I'll see what comes before deciding.
Re: (Score:2)
Anyway.
Ya. It is a shame. Go get an alternative that doesn't suck.
If you can swing the price, I've a Valve Index, and I fucking love the thing.
Lies all the way down (Score:2)
So their first statement about their new branding is also a blatant lie?
Great start there Mr Facebook.
Facesbook killing off the Oculus brand? (Score:2)
That's going to cause a rift with their VR customers.
Time to Short Facebook. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The calculation is that they're caught in a one-time incident of negative publicity, and they can shed it along with the brand like old skin. This works when you're not a household name - the problem is that they are. People will remember the name change. The other problem is the company's behavior won't change, so there won't be any new positive associations with the new brand.
Another thing is that the rebranding is a low-effort way to make the company appear more focused on VR. Maybe they're doing well in
Metaverse already exists (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Metaverse already exists, it's called VRChat, and everyone is an anime girl for some reason
Wait 'til they get a load of my overfiend avatar