
Facebook has been given the go-ahead from the Federal Trade Commission to purchase virtual reality start-up Oculus VR Inc. (via Reuters). CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Facebook’s plan to buy Oculus on March 25 for $2 billion as part of an effort to plant the company’s flag early on “the platforms of tomorrow.”
The Oculus purchase is Facebook’s first foray into hardware, and it has generated a considerable amount of backlash from the company’s Kickstarter backer community, including a high-profile withdrawal of support from Minecraft creator Marcus “Notch” Persson. The FTC and Department of Justice’s approval may be the final nail in the coffin for held-out hopes that the deal may collapse.
This comes close on the tail of Facebook’s announced purchase of messaging service WhatsApp in February for $1 billion, much like their much-discussed purchase of Instagram in 2012 for another $1 billion. In addition to buying up technologies further and further afield from the social network’s original purpose, Facebook has also announced sinister-sounding ambitions to bring the Internet to everyone using “drones, satellites, and lasers.”
Clearly, Zuckerberg’s company has joined Google in the race to first  become our dystopian technocrat overlord.
Editors' Recommendations
- The Quest 2’s unprecedented price hike is a bad look for the Metaverse
- PlayStation reenters the handheld gaming scene with special edition Backbone
- PlayStation VR2: release date, launch games, price, and more
- If you want a Quest 2, buy one before it gets a big price hike next week
- PlayStation VR2 will include see-through view and broadcasting options