Immersive Virtual Reality gaming center opens in Australia
A new gaming center has opened its doors in Melbourne, Australia, and it's not quite your typical after-school haunt. This place, called Zero Latency, offers true immersive virtual reality experience: if you want to kill zombies, you'll literally have to walk/run around, aim and shoot a VR gun. CNET got to try it out before launch and found that the center uses a 4,300-square-foot warehouse covered in a white-grid pattern and equipped with 129 PlayStation Eye cameras. One session can have up to six players, each one fitted with a backpack that houses an Alienware Alpha PC, which renders the environment for the users' Oculus Rift DK2 headsets.
The facility's creator, Scott Vandonkelaar, conjured up the idea before Oculus Rift's Kickstarter campaign, but he ultimately decided to use as many existing technologies as he could. It took three years of work for his idea to finally become a reality. CNET calls Zero Latency the world's "first VR entertainment facility," but it definitely won't be the only one. A similar project called "The Void" plans to open a VR gaming center in Salt Lake City, and we wouldn't be surprised if there are others still in the very early stages of development.
