General Discussion

This is huge. I would expect Apple to follow suit, probably as early as this fall. I'm really surprised (and disappointed) that Apple didn't do this first, actually. They've had everything in place for years. Now Amazon has the infrastructure, hardware, and customer base, to be one of the hottest thing in home entertainment (no pun intended). If it works. I like the idea of the mic on the remote. Looks like it has double the gpu power that the Ouya has, too. Very, very interesting.

As far as serving media, Apple TV primarily works through iTunes on a network Mac/PC. iOS apps require mirroring from an iPhone or iPad. Like you say, Jon, without access to native, downloadable apps, it is quite lacking compared to a Roku or Fire TV. That said, I love my Apple TV, and hope that, someday, Apple sees it's full potential. I hope the Fire TV will do just that. I tried Airplay once for gaming, and it's not optimal, or even playable. They have much work to do.

LoL Rapid Fire: "after looking at global data on bans...people just don't want Kassadin in the game. Accordingly, he's been deleted. We also removed Ryze." Too funny :).

Pranks aside, it might work, but I highly doubt it would work that well. Interesting idea, though :)

http://nooooooooooooooo.com/

Ok, ok, calm down... don't be so pessimistic. I mean this could be a good thing right? Now Oculus has a huge stack of cash behind them to advance the technology right? And all the parody Facebook VR videos and meme's we're about to get are going to make for some solid comedy.

How long until the Oculus starts tracking your eye movements to see which ads you look at and for how long, so to better target you with future advertisements? >.<

Already some interesting news on this:

Apparently there was a version of Minecraft being developed for Oculus. Not anymore according to Notch: https://twitter.com/notch/status/448586381565390848

Engadget has an article about the deal with this disheartening quote. This is from the "update" while on a conference call with Mark Zuckerberg: "Specifically, he talked about the potential of a virtual communication network, buying virtual goods, and down the line, advertising."
Article: http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/25/facebook-oculus-vr-2-billion/

Interesting.

Life is such a damn cartoon sometimes. I want Microsoft and Facebook to release a platform that has nothing but advertisements on it. Static ads, and 30-60 second spots of pure consumer targeted drama. They could call it something classy like "Ads, MF" or "PinkEye 360."

In truth, I haven't been keenly interested in VR. I'll holster any real opinions until I've actually tried it. However, I'm not a fan of Facebook. I think Facebook actually did give me pinkeye once.

Kickstarter funding may not be implicit with staying independent, but I'll bet it makes people think twice about funding tech projects in the future, if they see that their $2M contribution could just be funding a $2B buyout. If I had Kickstarted OR, I would be pissed right now, because instead of supporting the vision of Oculus VR, now I've successfully funded the vision of Facebook. A scarier thought might be that their visions were aligned in the first place, in which case I doubt as many would have cared about OR in the first place. If this were LOST, Oculus VR would be J.J. Abrams, Facebook would be Damon Lindelof, and it might sound all well and good for a while, but in the end it's just a steaming pile of horseshit.

The magic is gone.

(I don't really think Damon Lindelof is as frustrating as Facebook, but, as a writer, he does frustrate the shit out of me sometimes. :D)

Here's another recent example of Goliath controlling David, what consumers are agreeing to, and how it can go very wrong:

http://www.joystiq.com/2014/03/26/xbox-one-griefers-may-have-twitch-privileges-dessert-taken-away/

John Carmack has weighed in about the Facebook buyout over on Peter Berkman's (a member of chip-tunes band Anamanaguchi) Tumbler page. Kind of a weird place to make his first comments, but whatever.

Joystiq has a summary of Carmack's comments: http://www.joystiq.com/2014/03/30/john-carmack-on-facebook-buy-of-oculus-they-get-the-big-pictur/
Carmack's original comments: http://peterberkman.tumblr.com/post/80827337212/wrong-and-right-reasons-to-be-upset-about-oculus#comment-1310233365

Apparently the Facebook buyout was a surprise to him, although he seems fairly OK with the decision.

Pretty! I like the low cost of entry, although a free version to learn on would be nice, but the 5% royalty to Epic seems sketchy. I just hope other companies don't start doing this. Imagine if all the software you used as a professional took a cut of your success (Adobe, don't you dare!)?

I like Unity's approach. The subscription cost is higher, but the option to purchase a license is, I feel, still important. Of course you can learn to use the tools at no cost, which is the way it should be. I'm glad that model is working for them, and hope they continue with it. UE4 is so beautiful, though (graphically). I've never used it, but watching a few of the training videos they have on it make it seem less intimidating than I imagined. I've only gone as far as making test levels in Unity, but if UE4 is as welcoming to use, and (I would assume) more powerful, then it would certainly be worth $20 a month to try it out, at least.

My test level isn't much more than going through some tutorials that I followed to get used to the tools. When I was finished I had hills and a wooded area all textured with grass, some bushes, proper rocks, some sand (texture), and a skybox. First person perspective. Playing around with it made me thing two things: "Yeah, I can do this," and "I have a lot more to learn." I'll see if I can dig it out and send it to you.