What is Oculus Rift’s stock price, and are they publicly traded? Investors cannot purchase shares of Oculus Rift but can purchase shares of their parent company (NASDAQ: $META). Oculus Rift is a part of the Facebook family. If you want to invest in them, you’ll have to buy shares of Facebook for now.
At first glance, it sounds like something from a science fiction movie. In reality, it’s not too far off. Oculus Rift was established in 2012 in Irvine, California, by four entrepreneurs who loved the idea of video gaming in virtual reality.
Oculus Rift began as a Kickstarter campaign. It proved more successful than anticipated, raising $2.4 million despite the original goal being only $250,000. The campaign produced two headsets that were released to developers. They were codenamed Oculus VR DK1 and the Oculus VR DK2.
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Table of Contents
Oculus Rift Introduction (No Stock Symbol)
The big turning point for Oculus came in 2014. It was bought out by a little company, Facebook (NASDAQ: FB), for a cash and stock deal valued at $2.3 billion.
The deal truly put Oculus Rift on the map as a legitimate player in the virtual reality space. And it landed Facebook a much-desired foot into the gaming and virtual reality world.
While analysts saw the value of Facebook’s purchase, the deal was criticized by many in the gaming space as a slap in the face to the economy of crowdfunding.
As a result, what does that mean for Oculus Rift stock? It could potentially be a good thing at some point for both Oculus or even, say, Minecraft.
The Industry Leader
So, if you haven’t figured it out yet, Oculus Rift is one of the industry leaders in developing and building virtual reality headsets for gaming.
The Oculus Rift headsets specifically work with high-end PC gaming, which separates them from console headsets like the PlayStation VR model.
The Oculus Rift headset has a headpiece that the user wears over their eyes and two controllers that the user holds in each hand.
The player then plays games through the headpiece rather than on a computer monitor or television screen. Therefore, they experience the game as if they were truly in that world.
Virtual reality is still quite a niche market. However, its popularity is growing as consoles and PCs become more powerful and gaming technology advances.
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Can I Buy Oculus Rift Stock?
Unfortunately, right now, Oculus Rift isn’t a publicly traded company. They remain very much a part of the Facebook family. If you want to invest in Oculus Rift, you’ll have to buy shares of Facebook for now. This can be a somewhat expensive endeavor as the social media giant trades at around $270 per share. The virtual reality sector is in its infancy, especially regarding how big it can eventually get. So, wanting to invest in Oculus Rift stock is not a misguided idea. Who knows, it could one day break off from Facebook. But more on that later.
Facebook Companies
Are you debating whether or not to buy shares of Facebook? The social media platform is one of the world’s largest and most powerful companies.
They have a market cap quickly approaching the exclusive class of $1 trillion. As of the third quarter of 2020, Facebook boasted over 1.82 billion daily active users and over 2.7 billion monthly active users. More than a third of the world’s population. Just incredible! Here is a list of some other brands that Facebook owns.
1. Instagram
Just take a walk down the street or head into a coffee shop. Oddly, you’ll see at least one person scrolling through pictures on Instagram on their phone.
It’s the social media craze that’s spread like wildfire. Perfectly encapsulated are the concepts of capturing and sharing a moment in real-time on your mobile phone. It’s also become a method of advertising for businesses and brands that can creatively capture photos or videos of their products to show would-be consumers.
Instagram has over 500 million daily active users and over 1 billion monthly active users. Advertising and an eCommerce platform are built into the app for businesses to sell their goods. Instagram is a revenue ATM for Facebook.
2. WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger
The king of web-based messaging services, Facebook acquired WhatsApp in a cash and stock deal in 2014 for $19 billion, the company’s largest acquisition to date.
WhatsApp is the most used messaging platform in the world. Over 2 billion active users have nearly doubled the usage of Facebook Messenger and Tencent’s WeChat.
WhatsApp is highly used because of its end-to-end encryption security, which has both positive and negative sides. While it hasn’t developed much revenue, WhatsApp is one of the most important parts of the Facebook ecosystem.
Facebook Messenger is another messaging service that’s highly used around the world. They have over 1.3 billion monthly active users.
Years ago, Facebook opted to split the messenger app from the Facebook platform app. This forced users to install both apps even though they work in conjunction.
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Oculus Rift Stock Alternatives
Still on the fence about whether Facebook is a stock you want to add to your portfolio? Maybe you want to invest in the virtual reality space instead. Here’s how quickly the virtual reality space is growing. Name any big tech company in the world, and chances are they’re involved in virtual reality or augmented reality in one way or another. If you don’t feel like investing in Facebook, try looking at these companies and adding them to your watchlist.
1. Sony Group (NYSE: SONY)
Sony is the current industry leader in virtual reality gaming with its PlayStation VR headset, compatible with the all-new Playstation 5 console.
The future of gaming is now. As a result, the ability to slap on a VR headset while playing games with next-generation graphics may give Sony the edge over Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT).
Especially in the current console war. While it’s not a core component of its gaming platform, Sony is pushing the PSVR side of its next-gen console as a clear competitive advantage over its rivals.
2. Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM)
For every new technology we have, we need the microchips essential to running these devices.
Qualcomm is the world’s largest chip maker and builds the chips in the Oculus VR headsets.
So, if you want to invest in the engine that keeps these headsets operational, it’s not a bad idea to buy shares of the company that makes it all possible.
3. Snapchat (NYSE: SNAP)
Another social media platform with the under-25 crowd obsessing over which filters to use, Snapchat uses augmented reality to create short video clips that users can share with their friends.
While it’s probably safe to assume Snap will never be as big as Facebook, it hasn’t gone away and is still used by over 250 million daily active users.
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What Sets Oculus Rift Stock Apart?
One of the main differences in virtual reality headsets is that a majority of them, up to this point, have been tethered. Otherwise known as they plug into your computer. Oculus’ latest offering, the Oculus Quest 2, does provide a wireless experience. However, it’s noted by most reviewers that the experience excels when the headset is still tethered to the PC. The Quest 2 builds on its predecessor in nearly every imaginable way and has an exclusive line of games you can’t play with any other VR headset.
Oculus Rift Awards
Oculus Rift has won countless awards and recognition for its products. They’re routinely named the best virtual reality headset maker in the industry.
The best part about its newest headset is the Oculus Quest 2. It’s cheaper than nearly all of its major competitors, which include the Sony Playstation VR headset ($350), the HTC Vive Pro ($1,199), and the Valve Index ($999).
The Quest 2 has the most pixels ever in an Oculus Rift headset, and it is clear that Oculus Rift feels strongly about the headset as it is discontinuing the sales of all its other models in 2021.
In addition to the line of virtual reality headsets, Oculus Rift also runs Oculus Studios, which provides advice and support for creating game experiences to be used with the Oculus VR headset.
Facebook and Oculus have made some big investments in the gaming industry. In 2020 alone, they purchased the gaming studio Ready at Dawn, which is composed of former Naughty Dog and Blizzard Entertainment members.
Will There Be an Oculus Rift Stock?
Well, we wouldn’t say the chance is a high one. However, there has been increasing pressure from the United States Congress and other governing bodies like the European Union to split up the big tech companies for anti-competitive behavior and acting as new-age corporate monopolies. Perhaps you’ve heard recently about big tech taking out Parler? The list of companies includes, of course, Facebook, Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL), Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) as well.
This has also recently arisen in China as well where the CCP is investigating e-commerce giants such as Ali Baba (NYSE: BABA), Tencent (TCEHY), JD.com (NASDAQ: JD), Pin Duo Duo (NASDAQ: PDD), Meituan, and Didi Chuxing, for similar antitrust and anti-competitive behavior.
So what does that mean exactly? It means there’s a small chance that companies like Facebook would be forced to split their brands into separate entities.
This would, of course, directly impact Facebook’s stock. Perhaps we’ll see Facebook sell off WhatsApp, Instagram, and Oculus Rift someday.
At this point, the companies would be free to trade under their ticker symbols on Wall Street. Do we expect this to happen?
Not right now. Even though there’s more bipartisan support for this than ever, there’s also no guarantee that Oculus Rift would trade as a public company.
Even if it’s split-off from Facebook, investors shouldn’t see a potential breakup as an automatic opportunity to invest in Oculus Rift.
Final Thoughts: Oculus Rift Stock
In the world of virtual reality gaming headsets, it doesn’t get much bigger than the brand name of Oculus Rift. It provides users with cutting-edge technology and one of the best virtual reality experiences for PC gaming.
It is offered at a price much lower than its competitors. One of the main reasons for Oculus Rift’s success? The deep pockets and influence of its parent company, Facebook.
As of today, Oculus Rift is not a publicly traded company. Therefore, there is no Oculus Rift stock. So, to invest in the virtual reality industry, you must look elsewhere.
There could come a day shortly when Facebook and Oculus Rift part ways. But for now, if you want to invest in Oculus Rift, you will have to buy shares of the social media giant instead.
