VR manufacturing giant FuninVR already has VR machines operating in more than 6,000 gaming arcades and public environments worldwide, but that number might take a quantum leap with the release of the company’s 2025 catalogue.
The two hero products are machines that are smaller, more capable and much more affordable than ever before … at the same time as having an ever-growing library of VR content.
The 2024 catalogue already included digital and 5D dynamic cinemas for up to 200 people, entire VR parks and more than 20 different VR gaming platforms … but the two machines we feel certain will make the difference are the new US$7,000 single-seat VR DropTower and $9,000 twin-seat VR Skyship.
Those prices are ex-China, but with 6,000 installations across most countries already, there are solutions in place to get one where you want it ... so the dawn of consumer-level motion-simulated VR is happening now.
The new single-seat VR DropTower and twin-seat VR Skyship are aimed primarily at the VR arcade marketplace, though FuninVR also does a brisk trade with museums and science education initiatives around the world.
The company wanted some landmark products for 2025 and the two new platforms used everything that’s been learned to date to create new clean-sheet designs that use minimal floor space, cutting-edge motion simulation, and hence the highest repeat purchase – they are designed for the arcade market to make the most money per square foot of arcade space possible.
Those prices will only remain valid for the month of December, as the 2025 prices will be $9,000 for the VR DropTower and $9,990 for the larger twin-seat VR Skyship.
They offer such a quantum leap in all the key numbers and capabilities of a VR platform, that these machines must surely be closing the gap to becoming a luxury consumer electronic product for the home.
The 360° rotation plus +27°pitch of the VR DropTower in particular, make it an ideal platform for flight simulation as the full 360-degree range of sensations are available.
The United States home theater industry turned over north of $10 billion last year, so we figure that a $7,000 single-person and $9,000 twin-person platform might create a healthy new consumer sub-category in the not-too-distant future.
As both the VR DropTower and VR SkyShip are targeted at the VR Arcade marketplace, they are hence built to endure a brutal environment, so both should turn out to be durable, low-maintenance consumer appliances, and as can be seen from the stand walls around the SkyShip (taken at last month's Canton Fair), it makes optimal use of not much space.
There's another term I heard a lot in the arcade game areas of the Fair, and that was "high repurchase rates."
FuninVR Virtual Reality Simulators are already doing heavy duty business in over 6,000 locations globally, and because most of those machines are in VR Theme Parks and museums, the key performance metrics of every model are meticulously monitored, hence it can accurately claim that more than 100 million people have experienced its machines.
So when it claims "high repurchase rates", it means that if you've done it once, it's one of the likeliest machines in the park to generate a repeat purchase. Couple that with a low purchase cost and a small operational footprint of the VR SkyShip and FuninVR is expecting a big year next year.
VR headsets currently sell at an average price of around $425, and around 10 million headsets will be sold in 2024. Fifty million headsets have been sold in the last five years, with a spike during the COVID-19 pandemic.
With this in mind, the first showing of these new VR machines with affordable price tags must surely open up the beginning of consumer-level motion-simulated VR.
The company has rolled a lot of experience and intellectual property into these units.
Big screens were unaffordable at first too, and if you look back over the last 50 years of the consumer electronic industry, lots of other technologies that were once prohibitively expensive, traveled to the common human via the luxury market.
The biggest advantage of the new platforms is that they run an existing diverse and deep library of games produced for other platforms in the FuninVR range.
Enquiries to FuninVR regarding the DropTower and SkyShip can be directed to Carman Leung - carman@xd-cinema.com