Oculus co-founder, Brendan Iribe, leaves Facebook following reports it has cancelled ‘Rift 2’

Former Oculus co-founder, Brendan Iribe, has parted ways with parent company, Facebook.

Announcing the move on Facebook (via Gamasutra), Iribe – who founded Oculus in 2012 with Michael Antonov, Palmer Luckey, Nate Mitchell, and Andrew Scott Reisse – had been leading Oculus’ PC VR team.

"So much has happened since the day we founded Oculus in July 2012," Iribe said in his statement. "I never could have imagined how much we would accomplish and how far we would come. And now, after six incredible years, I am moving on."

"Working alongside so many talented people at Oculus and Facebook has been the most transformative experience of my career," he added. "We have a saying when someone compliments or thanks you – ‘Team effort’. The success of Oculus was only possible because of such an extraordinary team effort. I’d like to sincerely thank everyone that’s been a part of this amazing journey, especially Mark [Zuckerberg] for believing in this team and the future of VR and AR."

Here’s Iribe’s full statement:

However, TechCrunch reports that Facebook has now cancelled the "Rift 2" project, causing "fundamentally different views on the future of Oculus that grew deeper over time" that ultimately prompted Iribe’s departure.

"While we can’t comment on our product roadmap specifics, we do have future plans, and can confirm that we are planning for a future version of Rift," Facebook said in a statement.

Facebook bought Oculus for $2 billion in 2014. "We got the deal done with Facebook in three days. That’s how accelerated it was," Iribe said at the time. "We never intended to sell the company. We were building this thing and going along this path.”

A report earlier this year said that consumer content and the apps market for AR and VR combined hit $3.2bn last year, giving a year-on-year growth of 72 per cent. $2bn of that came from apps with AR features – driven by "the high-profile releases of Apple’s ARKit and Google’s ARCore SDKs that spurred interest in AR apps".