'Sweet Spot With Mike Sugerman:' V-Sports Combine Virtual Reality & Video Games
"Sweet Spot," by Mike Sugerman
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) – Video games are about to get real… virtually.
Virtual reality hasn't hit like many thought it would have by now, but a new era may be coming.
Spark is one of the ground breaking and body shaking events in the relatively new v-sport arena.
"V-sport is basically using virtual reality equipment, like for us on PlayStation 4, as your sports equipment," says Adam Kahn, of CCP Games.
He rolled out the virtual red carpet at Yankee Stadium recently to introduce the two-player game. One player's here, while the other is in Saudi Arabia. Players there are members of the U.S. military.
The gamer here is former Yankee Johnny Damon, brought in for some star power. He's a fan.
"Normally playing video games I want to chill a little bit, but this is a good way to keep in shape when you're actually having fun, as well," he said.
It's kind of like virtual dodgeball, using real wands to throw and block virtual balls while trying to keep the virtual you from getting hit.
It was an up and down experience for me when I got my hands on those controls, finding out Johnny Damon would likely beat me in anything – real or virtual.
Virtual reality has been slow in coming into its own, and it's never really taken off the way developers had hoped. Will it ever?
"Really who knows where this is going to go? I mean we're really at the very beginning of virtual reality," Kahn says. "I mean if you think back to mobile phones, for example, in the early '80s when they had them in their cars or they were backpacks or briefcases. That's where we are in virtual reality right now. So where this is going – who knows?"
Could VR be the next big thing, or the next laser disc, which went nowhere? Developers are hoping for a spark.
