Oculus VR has a new owner, but Facebook won’t completely mold the virtual reality company’s flagship product into its own image. Though a report from the New York Times claimed that Facebook is planning to eventually rebrand the Oculus Rift experience — redesigning the hardware and updating it with “a Facebook interface and logo” — a Facebook representative now says that won’t happen. The company told TechCrunch that the NYT statement about rebranding was “not true and not in the spirit of our relationship.”
Facebook won’t rebrand the Oculus Rift headset and interface
is an entertainment editor covering streaming, virtual worlds, and every single Pokémon video game. Andrew joined The Verge in 2012, writing over 4,000 stories.
"We're going to continue operating independently."
If true, the decision to rebrand would have have hinted at a more integrated strategy for Oculus than Facebook originally let on. The company initially appeared less interested in the hardware side of Oculus. “We view this as a software and services thing,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on a conference call following the announcement, “a network where people can communicate and buy things.”
Oculus founder Palmer Luckey has also emphasized that the VR company will remain largely independent despite the acquisition. “Mark does believe in our vision of virtual reality, and we’re going to continue operating independently, delivering what we’ve always wanted to deliver,” he told The Verge. No matter what the commercial version of the Oculus Rift looks like, though, one thing is clear: you won’t be able to play Minecraft on it.
Update: This post was updated to reflect Facebook’s denial.
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