Remember as a kid when you'd sit in a swivel chair and have a friend spin you around until you got dizzy? That's not what Roto VR does, or at least we hope it doesn't. However, it does bring swivel action to VR gaming (and other VR applications) with a motorized chair that will begin shipping to customers soon.
"The team have been working around the clock to get Roto VR final and shipment ready" said Elliott Myers, CEO and creator of Roto VR "We've taken our time to ensure a top quality final product and I'm thrilled to confirm that units are beginning to ship, we will move to full production and all consumer orders will be fulfilled in early 2018. We're super hyped because we know Roto VR will usher in a new era of unparalleled 360 VR immersion—and it's affordable."
By "affordable," Myers means $999 and up, depending on what accessories you add. We're circle back to this in a moment.
Roto VR is essentially a gaming chair with a headrest, lumbar support, and arm rests. It's propped up on a fancy motorized base, with a passthrough for your cables. This allows you to plug your PC into the back of the chair itself, so you don't end up wrapping yourself in cables as you spin around.
The point of all this is to create a deeper sense of immersion, without cramping your neck.
"We give people the ability to explore 360 degrees without needing to physically touch the floor with their feet—scratching around a swivel chair base is an immersion killer. Motorized turns gives us a sense of weightlessness, effectively a blank canvass for our imagination when in VR. We also wanted to get rid of tangling cables and neck ache," Roto VR explains.
Whether it succeeds at its goal or not, you'll have to wait for reviews of the finalized version to come out. Or you can plunk down a grand and hope for the best. That will get you the chair, base, VR head tracker, touch pedals, and control box.
You can add rumble for $190, and $200 extra gets you a racing pack with a steering wheel and pedals. If you want the whole kit and kaboodle—chair, head tracker, touch pedals, table for your keyboard and mouse, rumble, and a cable magazine—you can opt for the Total Roto VR package, currently discounted to $1,500 (from $1,625).
