South Africa is getting one of the world’s first VR-arcades

The V&A Waterfront in Cape Town will be the site of one of the world’s first permanent VR-arcades, reports NAG Online.

VRcade will officially open its doors on the weekend of 27 and 28 August, allowing gamers to get hands-on time with the newest VR-headsets in an old-school arcade environment.

“Virtual Reality (VR) is about to explode globally, but to have a really world class VR experience you need expensive equipment and lots of space. Most South Africans can’t afford either,” says Zach Joubert, MD at VRCade.

“We want to make VR more accessible to people, giving them a top-notch experience without the investment.”

So what do you actually do at VRcade?

Multiplayer VR gaming and VR experiences. Networked VR rigs let gamers enter the same virtual environment together. Currently, there are four rigs with plans to scale these up.
Watch friends play VR from the player’s perspective. Each rig is connected to a TV enabling people hanging out at the VRCade to watch what’s happening from the player’s perspective.
Mixed-reality green-screening: even more compelling than watching from the player’s perspective is merging VR with the real world using green screens. In about two weeks VRCade will allow audience members to watch their friends inside of the VR environment.

For those who want to get in on the fun early, VRcade will also be hosting a pop-up arcade at Workshop17’s events space at the Waterfront for the next two weeks.

For more details on the store and what to expect from VRcade, you can find their official site here.