Facebook has hired a team of virtual reality experts in London, creating the first European base for its burgeoning Oculus division as Mark Zuckerberg aims to be at the forefront of the new technology.

Having trailed behind both Intel and Nvidia in the PC graphics market in recent years, AMD is preparing to go all in on virtual reality.

That has analysts weighing in on how the Rift might perform this year, and at least one expert thinks the device will catch on in a big way.

Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg says a new computing platform comes around every 10 years. This year, he says, the next one arrives: virtual reality. Zuckerberg is trying to will that prediction into reality with Oculus VR, a Facebook subsidiary that in March begins shipping its $600 virtual-reality headsets, dubbed the Rift.

Facebook showed the world its first commercial version of virtual reality on Thursday - and offered tantalizing hints of how it hopes to turn three-dimensional goggles into a new kind of computing and communications device.