Skip to main content

Facebook plans to invest $3 billion in virtual reality over the next decade

Mark Zuckerberg Demos Oculus Chat
Facebook is planning to pour $3 billion into virtual reality in the next decade in an effort to improve the tech.

The revelations came from the company’s head honcho himself, Mark Zuckerberg, who made the remarks while testifying in a federal court, The New York Times reports. The Facebook founder was surprisingly forthright in his projection for VR — which was released to the masses last year in the form of several devices from the likes of HTC, Sony PlayStation, and Facebook-owned Oculus — claiming the computing platform’s experience isn’t currently “good” enough for general users.

Related Videos

The lawsuit facing Oculus was the first in what would later turn out to be a series of obstacles that would plague the company, culminating in Zuckerberg’s unexpected statements on Tuesday. It all began in 2014, shortly after Facebook snapped up the Rift VR headset manufacturer for $2 billion.

The suit filed by video game publisher ZeniMax alleges Oculus CTO John Carmack stole intellectual property from his former employer (and ZeniMax subsidiary) id Software and used it to build the Rift with Oculus founder Palmer Luckey. Oculus has denied the allegations. In early January of this year, the lawsuit made it into a jury trial in a Dallas federal court.

“We are highly confident that Oculus products are built on Oculus technology,” remarked Zuckerberg in court on Tuesday. “The idea that Oculus products are based on someone else’s technology is just wrong.”

Despite his attempts at putting a PR spin on his Dallas visit — Zuckerberg shared a series of Facebook posts showing his meetings with local residents as part of his “personal challenge” for the year — his court statements regarding the state of VR are generating far more interest.

“I don’t think that good virtual reality is fully there yet,” said Zuckerberg. “It’s going to take five or 10 more years of development before we get to where we all want to go.” He went on to add that Facebook would have to spend $3 billion on the tech in order to bring the computing experience to a level fit for mass consumption.”

Oculus previously faced issues over shipping delays of its VR headset following its launch in March 2016. Then, in December, the company’s CEO, Brendan Iribe, stepped down form his position to lead its PC VR division.

Editors' Recommendations

Apple delays unveiling of mixed-reality headset, report claims
A rendering of an Apple mixed-reality headset (Reality Pro) in a gray color seen from the front.

Apple’s highly anticipated mixed-reality headset is expected to be unveiled at the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June, according to a new report by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.

A Bloomberg report last month suggested the headset would land in April, but according to Gurman’s sources Apple has now delayed its appearance by three months after testing of the device surfaced software and hardware issues.

Read more
Apple’s secret VR headset just leaked an ingenious idea
A rendering of an Apple mixed-reality headset (Reality Pro) in a gray color seen from the front.

Apple’s Reality Pro mixed-reality headset is probably just a few months from launching, but we’re still seeing the company’s top-secret ideas seeping out into the wild. The latest leak shows one way you might be able to control things in Apple’s metaverse -- and it’s a pretty unusual concept.

According to a recently granted patent (number 2023/0042447 A1), Apple is exploring the idea of using an Apple Pencil as a sort of virtual reality (VR) controller. The idea is that your hand holding the Apple Pencil could be displayed in the mixed-reality world that you see through the headset, overlaying it onto augmented reality (AR) elements.

Read more
We now know how Apple’s VR headset may handle video, and it’s pretty awesome
A rendering of an Apple mixed-reality headset (Reality Pro) in a gray color seen from the front.

Ever since the first rumors surfaced that Apple was working on a mixed-reality headset, it has been assumed that immersive video would be a key feature of the device. Yet we’ve never really known exactly how this would work -- until now.

That’s because Apple has just been granted a patent (USPTO number 11570417) that goes into detail on how a user might watch video content while wearing the headset, which will allegedly be dubbed Reality Pro. And that patent presents an intriguing system that could have uses beyond simple video.

Read more