{"id":123600,"date":"2022-02-11T18:40:36","date_gmt":"2022-02-11T16:40:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/?p=123600"},"modified":"2022-02-11T18:49:35","modified_gmt":"2022-02-11T16:49:35","slug":"vr-arcades-the-virtual-reality-of-the-situation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/entertainment\/123600-vr-arcades-the-virtual-reality-of-the-situation","title":{"rendered":"VR arcades – The (virtual) reality of the situation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Arcade gaming is without a doubt the foundation of the modern video game industry.<\/p>\n

However, arcades have seen a significant decline in customers over the past couple of decades and have consequently needed to either shut their doors or embrace change to survive.<\/p>\n

The future is VR<\/h3>\n

Virtual reality (VR) seemed to be the next obvious step for many arcades.<\/p>\n

Starting in 2016, VR arcades began to pop up everywhere in the US to profit from the emerging VR gaming market.<\/p>\n

Considering that VR gaming was still in its infancy, the costs associated with providing the VR gaming experience to customers were (and still are) exorbitant.<\/p>\n

At the time, it was a solid business idea to provide customers with expensive VR equipment and consequently profit by charging them for the amount of time they played.<\/p>\n

However, the reality of the costs associated with starting and running a VR arcade is harsh.<\/p>\n

Reality is harsh<\/h3>\n

As with any new technology, it can take time before costs fall to a reasonable level for the average consumer.<\/p>\n

A VR gaming setup has a lot of factors that need to be involved for it to be a success, including the VR kit, the system to run it on, and any supporting peripherals.<\/p>\n

\"PlayStation<\/a>

A PS VR kit requires a PS4\/5 and peripherals to use.<\/p><\/div>\n

To play the most popular VR games, you need a VR kit, like PlayStation VR, any of the various VR kits from either Oculus or HTC Vive.<\/p>\n

That’s not all, though, since you need a system compatible with the VR kit. For the PS VR, you need either a PS4 or a PS5, and for the HTC Vive and Oculus kits, you need a powerful PC.<\/p>\n

The prices for the newest versions of the kits are:<\/p>\n

\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
VR Kits<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Platform<\/strong><\/td>\nPrice<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PS VR<\/td>\nR2,500<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Oculus Quest 2<\/td>\nR6,500 – R11,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
HTC Vive Pro<\/td>\nR25,000 – R33,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Considering all this, it is no surprise that the arrival of the pandemic crippled an already struggling industry, with several VR arcades in the US forced to close up shop.<\/p>\n

Although there are VR arcades in South Africa, it is hard to imagine that we will see an increase in their numbers any time soon.<\/p>\n

The harsh reality is that VR arcades will struggle to be viable in developing countries like South Africa.<\/p>\n

That hasn’t stopped some South African businesses from trying, though, like The Magic Company’s introduction of Beat Saber Centers to a select number of their arcades.<\/p>\n

\n

Read: The future of arcades may be bleak<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VR might be the future, but not for arcades.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":249,"featured_media":123601,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[8625,6477],"class_list":["post-123600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-arcade-gaming","tag-vr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/249"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123600"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":123603,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123600\/revisions\/123603"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}