There are reasons for concern following Facebook's purchase of Oculus Rift, but one massive benefit - at least for users - will be the way the social network giant is able to influence the headset's price. As in, it's going to be cheaper.
Had Oculus tried to bring the VR headset to market themselves (though I doubt they ever really intended to, I'm sure the intent was always to hold out for a wealthy suitor), it would had to have been sold at a price that made a profit. Now that Facebook is footing the bills, however, that's no longer a concern.
Just like Google does with its Nexus devices, Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg sees Oculus as a chance to get a device into as many hands as possible, price be damned.
"...we were planning to run a business, hopefully a break-even [or] profitable business off of this, not a money-losing business", Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe told Ars Technica. "Mark is much more in the mindset of 'Let's get this to scale with the best quality product at the lowest cost possible."
Facebook's money won't just make a difference on the first iteration of the hardware either, Iribe adding that it "...is going to allow us to deliver a much better consumer V2, that's for sure."
Oculus expects to sell "north of a million units" for first consumer Rift [ars technica]