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Oculus Rift Launches; Will Sony Unveil Better Console For VR?

Facebook ( FB ) stock is rising today as the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset begins shipments, officially making it the first high-end VR gear to come to market. Facebook-owned Oculus is expected to sell several hundred thousand $599 Rift devices this year. Evercore reiterated its outperform rating on Facebook, saying that the social media giant is “best positioned” to benefit from the growing importance of messaging applications. The investment advisory firm also raised its price target to 150 from 140. Shares climbed 0.8% to 114 intraday in above-average volume and are on track for a six-day winning streak. The rise puts Facebook even closer to a cup-base buy point of 117.69: it’s trading just 3% below that level. Sony Seen Unveiling New Console Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reports that Sony ( SNE ) has plans to unveil a new console ahead of the October launch of its $399 PlayStation VR headset. Sales of that device are expected to benefit from the already-installed base of 36 million PlayStation 4 consoles. Some say that an upgraded console with better graphics could help Sony win even more market share as serious gamers want top-notch visuals. Pressure On Microsoft? The new Sony console could also put pressure on Microsoft ( MSFT ), which typically releases its new console around the same time Sony does. Microsoft’s HoloLens, an augmented reality device, is in the developer stage. The $3,000 headset has gaming applications, as revealed during a Minecraft demo. The device will start shipping this Wednesday, the same day as the start of Microsoft’s annual developer conference. Microsoft fell 1% Monday, while Sony dipped fractionally.

Game On! Virtual Reality Race Starts As Facebook Oculus Rift Ships

Virtual reality will get its close-up on Monday when Facebook ( FB ) starts shipping its hot Oculus Rift headsets. Facebook sees Oculus Rift as a big game changer that starts with games and later moves to virtual front-row seats at sports games, as users slap on the Rift goggles for deep-seated immersion. Preorders for the $599 Oculus Rift headsets began in January. Facebook has not said how many Rift orders it received but did say they span 20 countries. When it ships,  30 games will be available, with more than 100 games expected by the end of this year. Game prices range from $9.99 to $59.99. High-performance PCs will be needed to power the Rift system. Oculus-ready PCs and Rift bundles are available from Dell, Dell’s Alienware unit, and Asus, which start at around $1,499. They’re available through Amazon ( AMZN ), Best Buy ( BBY ) and the  Microsoft ( MSFT ) Store. Research firm CCS Insight estimates  that virtual reality devices, including the related augmented reality field, will exceed $4 billion in sales in three years. It projects 2.5 million virtual reality and augmented reality devices will sell this year, growing to 12 million devices next year, and more than 24 million in 2018. Later this year, Facebook will also ship its Oculus Touch controllers that allow people to interact more naturally in VR through hand movements and gestures. Facebook says it’s working with thousands of developers on entirely new VR experiences. Facebook acquired Oculus for $1.9 billion two years ago. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the Oculus acquisition with a Facebook post , saying the technology goes far beyond being a system for gaming. “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,” he wrote in the post. In a conference call when Facebook announced fourth-quarter earnings on Jan. 27, he said: “This Oculus launch is shaping up to be a big moment for the gaming community. Over the long-term, VR has the potential to change the way that we live, work and communicate as well.” As to the revenue contribution Oculus will make to Facebook’s bottom line, the company is downplaying that for now. “With Rift, it’s early in the evolution of VR,” Facebook CFO David Wehner said on the conference call. “It’s early to be talking about large volumes. So, at this point, I don’t think we’re giving a lot of color around supply chain and that sort of thing. It’s not going to be material to our financials this year.” The arrival of Rift could have a big benefit for chipmaker and computer game-card maker Nvidia ( NVDA ), as the demand for virtual reality accelerates. Nvidia provides the graphic processors needed in computers for Oculus Rift performance and that of other VR systems. The virtual reality field is expected to be intensely competitive, with a host of companies jumping into the game. Samsung has already shipped its Gear VR. Sony ( SNE ) is releasing a PlayStation VR system later this year, which will have a $400 price tag. Sony VR will have the benefit of leveraging its installed base of 30 million PlayStation 4 users. Also coming is the Vive VR system from Taiwan-based HTC, in joint development with U.S. game developer Valve. The HTC VR headset will begin shipping on April 5. Likewise, Microsoft is working on its “HoloLens” technology.

Adobe Summit Sees World Gone Digital, From ‘Deadpool’ To Sea Of Data

Hit anti-superhero flick “Deadpool” got made with what’s been called an all-Adobe workflow . No wonder  Adobe Systems ( ADBE ) CEO Shantanu Narayen sounds a fan. In a keynote address kicking off the Adobe Summit 2016 digital marketing conference Tuesday, he used the cheeky comic book movie to illustrate how the content world’s gone digital. Adobe, of course, makes the Creative Cloud digital tools, such as Photoshop and Premiere Pro video editing software, and the Adobe Marketing Cloud tools used to track online content popularity and to power advertising decisions. The company gets a near-top IBD Composite Rating of 97, and the stock hit a new high in high volume Friday, after Adobe beat analyst views in its first-quarter earnings report and lifted its annual sales and earnings guidance. After February’s market dip, Adobe stock is back where it was in early January. How ‘Deadpool’ Went Digital “Last year one of the biggest media companies in the world decided to make an unknown superhero as big as Captain America without the usual big media and TV spots,” Narayen said in a livecast keynote  from the event in Las Vegas that he said drew more than 10,000 attendees. “Deadpool, a brash antihero most people had never heard of, wove his way into their lives through using one of the most innovative digital and social media campaigns ever.” “Deadpool,” by film folks at Twenty-First Century Fox ( FOX ), “shattered all box office records and is on the way to becoming the highest-grossing R-rated movie in film history,” Narayen said. He went on to talk about how MasterCard ( MA ), too, had moved to “pivot” a bit from traditional ad strategy toward online and social forms, exemplified by its #Priceless Surprises campaign that included things like winning a trip to the Grammy Awards. “Businesses must re-imagine how they interact with customers in a digital-first and digital-enabled world,” Narayen said, adding that “getting content to the right person at the right place at the right time takes data” — that is, the ability to analyze and target. Adobe Summit 2016 Debuts Adobe made several announcements in conjunction with its annual Summit show, including these three Adobe Marketing Cloud enhancements , among others: Adobe Certified Metrics , which standardizes some digital page and video viewership data that’s tracked in the Marketing Cloud. That will allow measurement partners, such as ComScore ( SCOR ) and Nielsen ( NLSN ), to “provide a complete view of total digital audience engagement across TV and digital,” which could boost ad-revenue opportunities. A new developer portal , Adobe.io. A TV recommendation engine called Adobe Primetime Recommendations, based on how the majority of U.S. households watch streaming TV and movies. It could be used by media companies and other kinds of firms to power what Adobe calls ” the next generation of TV recommendations.” TV Ratings For Digital Ad-Buying After viewing migrating away from the television itself toward online viewing via devices such as mobile phone screens and tablets, some online video viewing is now “going back to the living room,” Jeremy Helfand, Adobe’s vice president of video solutions, told IBD. “Over 20% of ‘TV Everywhere’ viewing is happening on connected devices — Apple ( AAPL ) TV, Roku or ( Sony ( SNE )) PlayStation or ( Microsoft ( MSFT )) Xbox, which is quite remarkable.” Historically, he says, “there was one currency — it was Nielsen — that’s what was used in order to purchase advertising,” Helfand said, “largely through upfronts and some residuals — that’s how advertising was bought and sold.” But tracking how many people are watching what these days, across a bunch of devices and websites, hasn’t been easy and that has hampered online video monetization efforts. Adobe Certified Metrics, which involves a developing partnership with ComScore following last year’s link-up with Nielsen, is one way that Adobe aims to make audience measurement easier and more standardized. “You’ve seen ComScore merge with Rentrak trying to bring digital and linear together just as Nielsen is,” Helfand said. “And you’re also seeing some media companies build their own definitions of who their audiences are, and go out to (ad) buyers and say ‘here’s my audience’.” The partnerships and platform development further Narayen’s goal of Adobe products and services being able to “make, monetize and measure” the digital experiences that people have in today’s world of content. The hope is that in turn will make Adobe software more crucial across a breadth of industries. In its Q1 report last week, digital marketing segment revenue at Adobe reached $406.2 million, which Pacific Crest Securities analyst Brendan Barnicle said, in a research note, was “better than the expectation of $402.7 million.” He added that the Summit event this week was “likely  to  provide  additional  positive  announcements  on  the marketing business.” Adobe added 798,000 new subscribers for its Creative Cloud businesses last quarter, and Barnicle noted that 30% of them were new to Adobe. He sees more CEOs driving adoption of Adobe products. “Like Salesforce.com ( CRM ) and Workday ( WDAY ), Adobe is seeing more CEOs make purchasing decisions,” he wrote. “In the 2016 Pacific Crest CFO Survey, both CIOs and CMOs saw a decline in the portion of the IT budget that they control. We believe that CEOs are making more IT decisions than ever before. They are looking to move their businesses to digital and to the cloud, and Adobe is one of several beneficiaries.” The Adobe Summit runs through Thursday, with actor George Clooney among speakers listed for the event — albeit most come more from the tech side than from Tinseltown. San Jose, Calif.-based Adobe has offices around the globe, including in Diegem, Belgium. It’s just outside Brussels, where terrorist attacks hit the airport and a subway station early Tuesday. Narayen started his talk with condolences, and despite its Summit event @Adobe said it was keeping its Twitter account silent for the day, in light of the Brussels situation.