VR Shoes Demoed

BBC News has a report from CES after taking a pair of virtual reality shoes called Cybershoes for a test walk. This looks like an interesting approach to the locomotion problem in VR games, allowing the user to simulate walking and running by skimming the shoes on the floor while remaining seated. They tout a connectivity with less latency than Bluetooth, and they seem to work well enough, and word is this supports games currently on Steam including Fallout, Skyrim, and DOOM. Besides the £400 price tag, one possible negative is that these don't seem like they would help in room-scale VR situations, as it doesn't appear like these will work when you are standing. Another is their warning that frantically moving about fighting monsters risks the user falling out of the chair. But the main issue that they focus on is that this can be tiring, as the subject managed to wear himself out pretty quickly ("I'm getting quite the workout from this though. Oh my legs are completely knackered"). The presenter does not appear to be a fitness fanatic, but that is probably a fair description of other members of this product's target audience. Perhaps the ability to use these to get into better shape will turn out to be a selling point.