Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg stepped onto the Oculus Connect stage tonight in his signature t-shirt, and he spoke at length about his vision for VR. Outside of all the cool new social stuff and the gimmicks, it was clear that he believes one thing is going to drive the tech forward more than anything else: videogames.
Related: have you seen our list of the best VR games?
So far Oculus have invested over $250 million in developers who are working on software for the Rift, and Zuckerberg promises that there’s $250 million more coming. That’s because he thinks killer software will bring the customers, which in turn will bring more killer software, and the buzz around VR as a platform will lead to even more hardware innovations.
In fact, Facebook are currently looking at creating something to fill the gap in-between the mobile and PC VR variants we have at the moment. Some kind of untethered, portable VR is currently in prototype at Oculus.
It’s not just games, of course. Zuckerberg says that 10% of the Oculus Store is now educational titles – in fact, there’s so much there that it’s getting its own section. This is another sector that’s getting invested in, with Oculus planning to support educational developers with $10 million in funding.
Perhaps the biggest funding news to come out of Oculus Connect, though, is the fact that Oculus plan to cover Unreal 4 licensing fees for videogame developers on their platform. This means registered developers creating software in Unreal 4 for the Rift can do so for absolutely free, right up until they’ve made $5 million in gross revenue.
If this level of investment in the tech doesn’t see it take off, nothing will.