Koei Tecmo Is Expanding Virtual Horizons With Its VR Sense Arcade Cabinet
Virtual reality is becoming increasingly detailed as time wears on. It’s nearly to the point where you can experience some shocking levels of immersion simply by putting on a headset and shooting some spaceships down. But
Koei Tecmo’s “VR Sense,” the company’s dedicated VR cabinet, is aiming to include all five of your senses when it builds gaming experiences. That’s right, even touch and smell.
The VR Sense made its debut today via Game Watch Impress and Famitsu, and there are already three games lined out for it:
GI Jockey Sense,
Horror Sense, and
Dynasty Warriors. The base VR Sense machines utilize PlayStation 4s as their hardware core as well as both the PlayStation Move and PlayStation VR headset. But there’s a handful of other things that keep you from being able to simply build your own VR Sense cabinet at home.
The chair can rotate in the cabinet, and there are also “hot and cold functions” as well as a mister and wind function meant to emulate riding a horse, running around in the rain, or other similar sensations. There’s also a “scent function” meant to help simulate smelling a smoky battlefield and other things that could potentially waft through the air. But the “touch” function may be the creepiest yet: It’s meant to create the sensation of insects or other creepy-crawlies skittering all over you.
You can see more of the cabinet via
Famitsu, but if you’re curious about how this experience goes without VR, head over to a Dave & Buster’s or a local arcade that may have a game called
Dark Escape 4D (from Bandai Namco), which simulates temperature, air, and motion without the VR trappings. It’s still pretty spooky and a good way to gauge whether or not you could handle it in a horror game in virtual reality.
