Why VR arcades could be virtual reality’s salvation
While different forms of VR arcades have been around since the late ‘90s, it hasn’t been until recently that new virtual reality gaming centers have been gaining massive popularity around the world, first in China, then in other parts of Asia and soon widespread in Europe and North America.
Earlier this week, the senior vice president of HTC’s virtual reality efforts announced initiatives meant to make it easier for people to open these arcades as small businesses.
The company opened Viveland, a VR arcade in Taipei, last week. He said the company is likely to open Vivelands in Europe and the U.S. as well.
Vive is getting into the VR arcade business mostly to help invigorate the sales of VR headsets and games that run on them.
"VR has never really gone away from the out-of-home entertainment and commercial simulation sector," he said. "Most notably Walt Disney saw incredible success with their VR platform incorporated into their DisneyQuest indoor theme park project. Opened in 1997, the facility operated continuously for over 19 years, the famous Aladdin's Magic Carpet VR Ride proving one of the longest running VR attractions, and underpinning the opportunity of VR in the attractions and amusement approach."
...enthusiasm seemed to be centered mostly in China.
That’s because, Williams said, other forms of immersive entertainment like 4D theaters and motion simulators are more established there.
As they’ve grown in popularity, the facilities generally called VR arcades have split into three distinct sorts of entertainment, he said.
"The first are facilities that offer places for players to use the latest consumer VR systems in dedicated facilities," Kevin Williams said. "The second element are specialist franchise sites, in China sometimes called VR Parks, running the latest VR game systems based on dedicated hardware. And finally in this category there are VR Arena-Scale facilities, which offer VR lasertag style experiences."
See the full story here: http://www.polygon.com/features/2016/11/7/13524296/vr-arcades-interview?curator=MediaREDEF