Ever since Facebook announced it was buying Oculus VR -- maker of the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset -- some gamers and especially those who backed the company when it was on KickStarter have criticized the company. Oculus VR CEO Brendan Iribe sat down at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York to explain why he thinks the buyout was a good idea, and Latin Post Tech was there to hear it.

Iribe sat down with TechCrunch co-editor Matthew Panzarino to discuss Oculus in the age of Facebook, and Iribe laid out an ambitious vision for the future of his company.

"This is going to be the most social platform of all time," Iribe said in describing why he and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg first got together to discuss the acquisition. Iribe told the TechCrunch audience that the deal wasn't just Zuckerberg's idea, saying, "We both pitched to each other." And, implicitly answering his critics, Iribe said that in their talks before the acquisition, he emphasized that he wanted Oculus to preserve its own culture.

"We expressed that to Mark. He was really open to having us independent. ... It's a new model," said Iribe, describing the way recent Facebook acquisitions, like WhatsApp, have remained independent but with access to the vast financial and structural resources housed within Facebook. "Certainly, preserving Oculus was really important," Iribe said. "It's important to our community; it's important to our team. And I think that's something that resonated with [Zuckerberg]."

Iribe said the feeling went both ways, describing Zuckerberg as saying, "You can use any part of Facebook -- or not. ... It's up to you guys. You now just have one of the biggest networks in the world behind you," Iribe said.

That point was what convinced Iribe that the Facebook deal was right for Oculus's future. "We knew with Oculus -- with a virtual world -- if you're putting on this pair of glasses and you're going got be face-to-face communicating with people and they're going to be jumpin in and out of this new set of virtual worlds, this was going to be the largest MMO [Massively Multiplayer Online] ever made," Iribe said. "This is going to be an MMO where we want to put a billion people in VR. And a billion person MMO is going to require a bigger network than exists today," Iribe continued, essentially saying, 'Why not start with Facebook?'

Iribe sees Oculus not only as the biggest new thing in gaming and communication but essentially a leap forward in platforms -- away from screen-based 2D graphics. So while he defended Oculus as a gaming company first, he made the point that, with Facebook, Oculus could be the next disruptive platform, the way smartphones have changed the face of computing. "We're game developers. ... Most of the people in key positions ... are all game developers," Iribe said. "So we're very committed to gaming, but do we want to be Gameboy or iPhone or Android?"

"Do we want to be building a platform that has a billion users on it or 10 or 20 or 50 million?" Iribe asked hypothetically. With the structural power of Facebook behind it, according to Iribe, Oculus could replace consoles, PCs, and mobile, which Iribe contends have all matured and plateaued, as far as next-step development possibilities: "It's not going to get much better from where it is now," Iribe said, referring to the mobile platform for gaming and communications.

"Going out and replacing vision and actually making synthetic vision, where you can put on -- hopefully in the future -- a pair of sunglasses," Iribe said, as he illustrated his point by pulling out his wayfarers. "And you can kind of put them on, and now we're all in the future: This is going to be what we call the 'final platform.'"

"Replacing vision," Iribe said grandiosely. "Everything after that is just an incremental improvement."

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