Facebook and Oculus have come out denying a New York Times article claiming that Facebook plans to slather its branding and interface on the Oculus Rift.
It almost sounded like a joke, and perhaps for good reason. Citing a “person involved in the [Facebook / Oculus deal] who was not allowed to speak publicly because he was not authorized by either company,” a recent New York Times article reported that “Facebook eventually plans to redesign the Oculus hardware and rebrand it with a Facebook interface and logo.”
Oculus Founder Palmer Luckey told Road to VR that the claim is “total BS.” A Facebook spokesperson told TechCrunch that the claim is “not true and not in the spirit of our relationship [with Oculus].”
The Times articles was written by Nick Wingfield and Vindu Goel, with additional reporting by Nick Bilton.
The claim isn’t likely to have gotten any attention except for the fact that it was written in such a well regarded publication. I would have expected the Times to make sure a quote like that was well vetted before publishing it. Who would have made such a claim? Maybe the authors of the article mistook the source to be talking about the Rift when they were actually talking about something else? Seems rather dubious… I’m just glad to know that it isn’t true.