Is the future of VR in holodecks full of bumper cars?

  • German entertainment giant ProSiebenSat1 has invested €3M in VR tech firm HolodeckVR with the goal of transforming bumper cars into a full VR experience.

    Virtual reality headsets have seen limited success in the area of gaming, with both the standard seated experience and small roomscale virtual reality setups accruing niche audiences. Recently we've seen several firms making headway in larger VR experiences, with even a team at Kainos in Belfast coming up with immersive 3D experiences.

    The ultimate endgame for this larger scale of VR could be seen as a kind of holodeck-style experience where the user walks around a real physical environment they can interact with but the headset shows them something different. That's certainly the approach being taken by Munich-based company HolodeckVR, which uses untethered mobile VR headsets and a variety of sensors to produce immersive gaming experiences.

    HolodeckVR is more suited to a theme-park style setting or as part of an event rather than as a personal home gaming platform, being designed for groups of up to 20 people interacting in a 10m x 20m physical space. It uses a mix of proprietary infra red and radio frequency tech to track the individual headsets, and promises to be able to service thousands of guests per day.

    The company has now secured funding €3M in funding from German entertainment giant ProSiebenSat1, which it will use to transform a Dodgems / Bumper Cars attraction with the inclusion of VR goggles. With the ability to track all of the cars in realtime and render accurate representations of all the cars, this should be able to produce extremely responsive results. If successful, this could become a model for overhauling other attractions in the future.

    Source: TechCrunch

    About the author

    Brendan is a Sync NI writer with a special interest in the gaming sector, programming, emerging technology, and physics. To connect with Brendan, feel free to send him an email or follow him on Twitter.

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