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.