Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg bought virtual reality startup, Oculus in 2014 for $2 billion.Three years after, it seems that the amount paid was merely a downpayment, as Zuckerberg is likely to spend more because of the Oculus lawsuit.
Oculus lawsuit: what is it about?
According to Yahoo! News, Oculus is being accused of stealing some of its virtual reality technology from a video game company caled ZeniMax Media. The social networking giant has also shelled out $700 million to keep certain Oculus employees and vowed to provide an additional $300 million if the company met specific milestones.
ZeniMax on the other hand, claimed thay Carmack, the founder of Oculus, copied documents from a computer at ZeniMax to a USB device and even returned to take a customized tool for creating VR systems.
Why is Zuckerberg spending more money?
Zuckerberg said Facebook might have to pay an additional $3 billion into Oculus to shore up its technology. So why carry out to spending nearly $7 billion, plus $2 billion more if Oculus loses its lawsuit? Zuckerberg knows better than that. See, where the Rift, HTC's Vive and Sony's PlayStation VR are initially designed as gaming systems, the Facebook founder has his eyes on making virtual reality a more social experience.
At the Oculus Connect 3 conference in October, Zuckerberg took the stage to show off a kind of virtual/augmented reality system the company was working on. In the demonstration, Zuckerberg showed how he, through a digital avatar, could interact with friends and family in real time in a digital space as if they were all in the same room.
Mark Zuckerberg appears in court
Zuckerberg recently appeared in court and said he had never heard of ZeniMax before, adding that his legal team would not be spending much time on something they didn't think was credible. Additonally, Zuckerberg divulged that Facebook actually paid $3 billion to buy Oculus, as oposed to the reported figure of $2.3billion. (via Daily Mail)
What could possibly happen next in the Oculus lawsuit, following Zuckerberg's, court apperance?
