Introducing Michael Abrash, Oculus Chief Scientist

[Br0ken]

http://www.oculus.com/blog/introducing-michael-abrash-oculus-chief-scientist/

WOW! :shock:

[Anonymous]

it's not facebooks fault you have no friends

[ZuluPilot]

Wonderful news. Keep announcing stuff like that and even the loudest critic is going to shut up about the aquisition.
I'm going to fire up Eden River now and give my brain a breather.

[snappahead]

I must admit that my first response to this news was "who?" But after doing a little research I can understand the hype. Hes the real deal. A pioneer in gaming. Its certainly encouraging after all this FB hoopla to see someone like him signing on and committing to the vr cause in such a big way. Im cautiously optimistic again.

[obzen]

"Dexter111" wrote:
Oculus was pretty much on track and every hope for VR enthusiasts and gamers until the buyout and were on track of delivering the best consumer version they could growing naturally from there, they may have resources in the short term, but have absolutely no control over the long term development. Another hire obviously changes everything about that... somehow.

It's sad, because this means Valve is apparently out as possible competitor bringing everyone VR.

Won't matter. By then, VR will be firmly in place, or will be a failure, and not because of Oculus, or Facebook.

Abrash and Carmack are old school. They know their shit. Gurus at getting the best off what they've got.

[pixel67]

"rtweed" wrote:


I haven't overlooked it, it's just that nobody has announced that any such contractual obligation exists...

In the meantime, I'm cautiously optimistic now that we have Carmack and Abrash together, and I'm inclined to believe that these two know a lot more about the specifics of the agreement than we do and would have walked away if it was truly awful. I don't want to drag this thread down with negative speculation as we have no facts on this one way or the other at this point. That said, I would reiterate that it is cautious optimism and I'm keeping an open mind for now, as I believe we all should.

While I am not a lawyer, I deal with enough contracts with public corporations on a daily basis to know a few things.
1. We will never know if any contractual obligation exist to keep oculus "intact". All contracts have confidentiality clauses and no one wants to be in breach and mess up something this big. But, their actions (hiring abrash) should ease these concerns and provide hints as to the content.
2. You are spot on about shareholder driven decision process however you have to keep a few things in mind. Shareholders mainly focus on the big margin generator and oculus really won't be contributing to the bottom line in the short term. This is evident in their recent stock performance since Facebook announcement. If anything they are actually dragging down performance in the short term, but there is high potential this will change. If they believe in the oculus vision then they will leave them alone for the most part to let them define the market and capture as much market share as possible. If they ever start losing market share though, all bets are off and corp Facebook engagement would be a certainty.

Michaels very well timed hiring was played perfectly, should ease much of the paranoia we have been seeing on these boards lately, and adds instant credibility to oculus being in the drivers seat in the short term. Good to see the dynamic duo of my youth back together again!

[Ashok]

Honestly, I'm more excited about Abrash working with Facebook and Oculus than I was about Crystal Cove. Take my wallet Palmer. 🙂

[Ethereal]

Somewhere I still have a copy of his "Graphics Programming Black Book."

[Anonymous]

As big as an announcement as the Facebook acquisition !!

Day 2 will be completely unrecognisable from Day 1.

[goettel]

"Br0ken" wrote:
http://www.oculus.com/blog/introducing-michael-abrash-oculus-chief-scientist/

WOW! :shock:

WOW is right...

I'm already picturing many of the hysterics madly scrambling to OVR support to beg for their spot in the queue back. I'd say: "don't shoot, let 'em burn!" :lol:

This is (more) excellent news, this week almost tops last year's Carmack bomb. Great days!

[wazzoz99]

And the great thing about the oculus acquisition is that now Oculus will have more leverage/networks in dealing with powerful hardware manufacturers such as samsung. whove have been notorious for disallowing their premium panels to go on sale in the mobile display market. They could even create partnership whereby Samsung with some of oculus RD investment capital can start fabricating custom oled panels for ORVR CK2.