Hi guys,
TL;DR: Are Oculus and Valve still partners or have they become competitors? If they are competitors how do you see this pan out? Should Facebook outright buy Valve? Do you think it is possible for a company to become a VR platform without owning an OS, a 3D engine and popular games? What can Oculus offer that competes with Valve’s offer? If they are still partners what exactly does Oculus bring to the table?
Ever since Facebook acquired Oculus I have been wondering what this acquisition has done to the relationship that Oculus has with Valve. Facebook has said they are not a hardware company and are not looking to make a profit on the headsets themselves, but on software and other services like perhaps movies, sports and tourism. Oculus has said multiple times that initially they are going to target the hardcore gamers since they are basically the only ones who have systems that can run acceptable VR and game developers are the only ones who can offer VR content. Could it be a problem for Oculus if they have to compete with Valve for the money of the hardcore gamer? Most PC gamers already use Steam and Valve is actively integrating VR into Steam (I don’t exactly know the current status of SteamVR, but it seems to working and a decent experience, correct?). Valve also has an OS and a 3D engine, which to me seem like key components for a VR content company or VR platform holder. Valve also has popular IP’s like DOTA, Half-Life, Portal, etc. Wouldn’t lots of gamers flock to SteamVR instantly if Valve releases a VR version of these IP’s? We know that Valve is actively working on a VR version of DOTA where you can scale the game so you can stand in a lane or have the entire playing field layed out as a boardgame on a table. How could one resist that if you like VR and DOTA? I can only imagine how awesome Portal would be in VR. If gamers go to SteamVR then developers will likely want to have their games there as well.
What can Oculus offer that can compete with this? I don’t have a DK2, but of course I have read impressions and troubleshoots here on r/oculus and to me it seems that there are still problems even with Oculus’ own software. Even though Oculus has hired an army of amazing skillful people I don’t see them offering what Valve offers in 9-18 months when CV1 is supposed to be released. So if it turns out that Oculus and Valve are competitors then to me the best solution for Facebook seems to be to just buy Valve and its (in my opinion critical) assets, instead of trying to build them all yourself. This way you kill two birds with one stone: you gain critical components and simultaneously eliminate a dangerous competitor.
If they are still partners then what exactly is Oculus bringing to the table if they are not planning to be a hardware company? To me it looks like Valve basically has everything set up to offer a good VR platform (SteamVR, Source2 and Steam Machines) and is only waiting for some company to offer a headset and I’m guessing it won’t take too long before there are lots of hardware companies that offer them, with Sony and Samsung already invested and other companies likely following closely.
Submitted August 29, 2014 at 01:48AM by skyzzo http://ift.tt/1qJALju
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