Zuckerberg views gaming headset as a "new communication platform."
FORTUNE -- Facebook's deals are becoming the stuff of legend. In the last few months alone, Mark Zuckerberg has spent $19 billion on a messaging app, and reports say he's paying $60 million for a drone company. Today he announced Facebook's latest head-scratcher: $2 billion for Oculus VR, the maker a virtual reality gaming headset called Oculus Rift.
Facebook (FB) will pay $400 million in cash, with 23.1 million shares of Facebook common stock valued at $1.6 billion, the company said. In addition, the deal includes a $300 million earn-out in cash and stock. Oculus Rift got its start on Kickstarter, but went on to raise $93.4 million in venture funding from Spark Capital, Matrix Partners, Founders Fund, Formation 8, BIG Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz.
So: Why? Is Oculus Facebook's answer to Google Glass? Is it the social network's desperate attempt to inject itself with fresh innovation? Is it a cynical play for Oculus Rift's legendary CTO, John Carmack? Does Facebook want to fill a Zynga-shaped hole in its games-related revenue?
According to a Facebook post from Zuckerberg, he views Oculus Rift as a communication platform. The company will operate independently from Facebook and continue its path of developing a platform for virtual reality games. (This, by the way, marks the third time Facebook has veered from its acqui-hire strategy of shutting down the companies it acquires -- the other two are Instagram and WhatsApp.) But Facebook's vision for Oculus is much bigger than games:
After games, we're going to make Oculus a platform for many other experiences. Imagine enjoying a court side seat at a game, studying in a classroom of students and teachers all over the world or consulting with a doctor face-to-face -- just by putting on goggles in your home.
The team at Oculus echoed Zuckerberg's sentiment in their own blog post:
At first glance, it might not seem obvious why Oculus is partnering with Facebook, a company focused on connecting people, investing in internet access for the world and pushing an open computing platform. But when you consider it more carefully, we're culturally aligned with a focus on innovating and hiring the best and brightest; we believe communication drives new platforms; we want to contribute to a more open, connected world; and we both see virtual reality as the next step.
Shares of Facebook were slightly down by 0.88% in after hours trading.
Facebook is hosting a conference call to discuss the deal; Fortune will update this post as it unfolds. In the meantime, here's a video Fortune produced on the headset:
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