Facebook Wants Hollywood to Make Virtual Reality Content for Oculus Rift

One concern that gets raised with all new viewing formats (such as HD, 3D and then 4K) is the lack of content that will make an investment in the technology worthwhile for customers. For virtual reality, the thrust of companies such as Oculus VR, the makers of the Rift headset, has been focused on building relationships with game developers, and the Rift is largely viewed as a gaming peripheral.

In March, Oculus was acquired by Facebook for $2 billion - a move that was met with a lot of negativity from gamers at first. So far though, all the further developments from Oculus has been quite positive, and now, it is being reported that the VR company is in talks with Hollywood studios to create special content for the Rift.

On Thursday, The Information reported (full article behind a paywall) that Facebook has been meeting with studio executives and directors to create special content for the headset.

At the San Diego Comic-Con last month, virtual reality tie ins with movies on the Rift were extremely popular and showed how the technology can be used to enhance non-game experiences.

In February, HBO also created an Oculus Rift experience where you would "ascend the Wall" - a promotion for Game of Thrones.

Since 2012, when the Rift was first launched using crowdsourcing portal Kickstarter, it has been hard to dismiss the idea that people are now ready for VR in games. Despite that, at the latest E3 gaming conference which took place in June, VR was an interesting sideline, at best, and not the show-stopper many expected it to be. Roping in Hollywood will help to take VR to the mainstream, and build an audience outside of gaming, so this move from Facebook makes a lot of sense.