Anyone willing to dive into the world of virtual reality can put on a headset and sink into their favorite chair, or wait for a treadmill to hit the market. The other option is to sneak into the Max Planck Institute and make use of the CableRobot Simulator, composed of a lightweight cabin suspended by cables that respond quickly to user commands.
Let's pause and think about all the games that could make good use of virtual reality. Flight simulators and car simulators are at the top of the list, but we cannot ignore genres such as space combat, first-person RPGs, and FPS. In addition to the lack of original content, another problematic aspect for virtual reality is the reproduction of movement. Current headsets have mechanisms to track even the slightest change in the position of our heads, but they can't do much with the rest of our body. Treadmills are shaping up as an intermediate solution... and then we see things like this.
The CableRobot Simulator
What you just saw is a demo of the CableRobot Simulator, a system from the Max Planck Institute based on a cabin made of carbon fiber, eight steel cables, and the desire to be suspended in the air for the whole session. The cabin already has its own virtual headset, fully calibrated to reproduce accurately and in real time (with the corresponding latency, I assume) each of the commands executed by the user. The CableRobot Simulator is capable of generating an acceleration of up to 1.5g, and its scale is limited only by the room it's in.
I calculate that the video has no music due to some copyright claim (or because the system is very loud), but that doesn't change the fact that the CableRobot Simulator looks impressive. Due to its size and complexity, it's hard to imagine a commercial equivalent designed for the average user... but dreaming doesn't cost anything. Personally, I can't get the idea of playing Elite: Dangerous or Star Citizen on top of that thing out of my head. What would be your first game in the cabin?
