Oculus Rift and Facebook

Facebook acquired Oculus Rift for some two billion dollars in cash and stock.  While I've never been a fan or proponent of virtual reality or the Oculus Rift, I can understand why some backers are upset.

Facebook isn't a games industry company.  Games run on their platform, but the games only serve as a way to draw people into their system.  Facebook churns through users and depends on a massive number of them in order to sell advertising.

The problem is that virtual reality probably won't be used by hundreds of millions of people.  It will be a niche product like stereoscopic 3D games and movies, although it could be a very large niche with millions of users.  A company like Valve can support a small to large niche, but Facebook demands higher returns for its investments.  It's unlikely Facebook will derive significant consumer revenue from Oculus Rift without gaming.  That leaves business and government purchases, but there's a problem there as well.

It doesn't quite make sense that Facebook bought Oculus Rift to compete with Google Glass.  Google Glass provides a heads-up display to deliver environmental information to users.  The business application is readily apparent:  a delivery man equipped with Google Glass can track a package, drive an optimal route, and receive updates from headquarters in real time (individual technologies already exist for this, but Google Glass can combine all these functions into one portable unit).  Oculus Rift only allows the wearer to explore a virtual environment.  It might be useful for training medical or military personnel, but its applications are inherently limited.  Gaming is one of the larger potential roles for the Oculus Rift, but since Facebook isn't primarily interested in it, the Rift's backers may be left out in the cold.

Of all the possible suitors for Oculus Rift, Facebook may prove the worst.  Companies like Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony have all shown a willingness to support new technologies for a length of time.  Facebook is too young and their recent spendthrift buying spree suggests little if any long-term planning or strategy.  The second Facebook runs into serious financial difficulty, they'll jettison Oculus Rift as dead weight.  Facebook will either sell it or, possibly to forestall competitors, simply shut it down and cease all production.  Oculus Rift fans and backers are right to be worried.  A more traditional gaming company could guarantee a certain level of support.  Backers could trust that it wouldn't be dropped on a whim.  Facebook can't buy that.

Fiend vs. Mystic (Chrono Trigger - DS vs. SNES)

In the Chrono Trigger DS review/overview, I mentioned that "Fiend" isn't a good fit for the monster-people in Medina.  Here, I'll go into detail about that.

There were many other names, words, and terms that TOSE and Square-Enix could have re-translated to better match the original Japanese (Crono to Chrono, Ozzie to Vinegar, Masamune to Grandleon, etc.), but most survived the cut.  "Mystic" did not despite that it seems to be the superior term.  "Mystic" is better because it indicates the creatures are magical, but not necessarily evil.  "Fiend" doesn't hint at their magical nature and casts them as unthinking monsters.  A society with a mayor, shops, town square, and an inn can't be Fiends.  One of them even gave Crono cake.  How Fiendish is that?

In Japanese folklore, "demon" can include fairy-like or magical creatures that aren't necessarily evil.  This is a problem in American English as there is no general term that I know of for a magical creature that could be good or evil (there may be some regional, outdated, or esoteric terms, though).  "Fairies" are benign, but that term brings forth images of Tinkerbell.  "Demons" are inherently evil.  "Monsters" commit evil acts and may be unthinking; ditto for "Fiends".  Dungeons and Dragons solved this by using the term Fae/Fey (reminiscent of "fairy") to indicate a magical realm and creatures.  "Mystic" could be used similarly to imply magical origins, but not an evil disposition.

Likewise, Magus gained the title "Fiendlord" because of his Japanese title, Maou.  According to Chrono Compendium, this can be translated as either "Demon King" or "Magic King".  Calling Magus "Magus" seems analogous to "Magic King" and thus "Fiendlord" is wholly unnecessary.  Perhaps he could have a second title, "Lord of the Mystics", but it doesn't seem natural to refer to him as such.

iPhone: Not the Future of Gaming

Tech writers raised much ballyhoo regarding the adoption of the iPhone as the preferred gaming device of the masses.  There is one problem with this:  the iPhone is simply too expensive.  Apple sells their latest phone at $650 as the base price (additional storage raising the price in $100 increments).  The iPhone 5s pushes approximately 115 GFLOPS of graphical power for that amount of money.  The forthcoming PlayStation 4 on the other hand delivers 1840 GFLOPS for $400.  The PlayStation 4 provides more value for the dollar compared to an iPhone 5s.  Other devices beat it or are at least competitive with it.  I've assembled a table to display relative GPU efficiency of devices:

Gaming Efficiency
Device	iPhone 5s	PlayStation 4	Xbox One	3DS	Wii U	Lumia 521*	Vita
Cost	$650	$400	$500	$170	$300	$150**	$200
GFLOPS	115	1840	1230	4.8	352	19.2	51.2
GFLOPS per dollar	0.177	4.6	2.46	0.0282	1.173	0.128	0.256

*Assume it runs Adreno 305 GPU.  There should be similar Android phones in that price/performance range.
**Nokia/Microsoft cut the price to $100 recently, but they may be taking a loss and the nature of cell phones means a new model will be out next year.  So, $150 makes a good base price for comparison.
(Source for device GFLOPS:  http://kyokojap.myweb.hinet.net/gpu_gflops/)

With a voice and data plan, the iPhone 5s costs a user about $1,000 per year.  A typical family can't afford to give their children iPhones purely for gaming.  The iPhone 5s is so expensive that for the same price a person could buy a $50 pre-paid basic phone, a PlayStation 4 or desktop computer, and avoid a monthly cell phone bill.  Phone carriers subsidize the cost of the phone as part of the monthly bill (taking money from their standard plans to pay for the phone), but the costs are still too high for most families.

Additionally, a new iPhone comes out every six months to a year.  Keeping up with that pace drains the finances of the average consumer.  Consoles typically last at least five years before a replacement shows up and used games allow players to avoid $60 lemons.  Even copies of brand new console games drop after a while (see Greatest Hits versions of games on PlayStation).  PC gamers can upgrade graphics cards and make use of Steam sales to purchase games cheaply.  The iPhone is a money sink that practically requires cheap games to make up for the high costs of ownership.  And cheap games are not necessarily good games despite the hype for indie and mobile developers.  Not to mention that some mobile games push downloadable content heavily, sometimes costing over $100 to obtain every feature in a game.

GFLOPS aren't the be-all and end-all of gaming, but even in other areas the iPhone is lacking.  Fast-paced games require buttons; a touchscreen isn't good enough.  Using third-party controllers won't work well because developers would need to plan for multiple input schemes (such as one controller which includes shoulder buttons and another that doesn't).  Despite its far lower GFLOPS, the Nintendo 3DS at least contains buttons allowing for fast-reflex games and every developer can assume they are present during the development cycle.  The iPhone also does not allow for external SD cards or the swapping of batteries whereas far cheaper smartphones from competitors do.

Expensive smartphones and data plans have their uses, but their total cost of ownership is far too high to function as dedicated gaming devices.  They could be casual gaming devices, but casual gaming devices don't need to cost $650 and push 115 GFLOPS.  If your job, if you have one, doesn't involve constant communication, then you probably shouldn't buy something like an iPhone.  At that point it's just a toy and there are cheaper and better toys out there.