Virtual reality (VR) yesterday got a little too real at the Tokyo Game Show when gamers lined up at one exhibition and got touchy-feely with a mannequin that, when viewed through VR goggles, transformed into a female anime character.
The show’s organizers told software developer M2 Co to stop visitors from fondling the dummy’s breasts, which, through built-in sensors, prompted the anime image in the goggles to move.
The hands-on display was meant to demonstrate technology to turn flat pictures into 3D images.
“I feel as though I have seen the future,” said an excited programmer, Hiroyasu Ando, 24, who tried the VR game before the touching ban was imposed. “It’s going to be possible to fall in love with a virtual girl.”
The Tokyo Game Show began on Thursday, dominated this year by VR goggles from the likes of Sony Corp and new software for immersion technology.
A number of booths offering visitors the chance to experience VR are lining the halls of this year’s gaming show taking place at the Makuhari Messe convention center in the Tokyo suburb of Chiba.
“I think VR makes gaming more of a experience,” Web magazine Engadget senior editor Matthew Smith said. “I think it puts you deeper inside a game, deeper inside a universe or a situation that you’ve never imagined before.”
Although scantily clad women greeted visitors at many of the booths, exhibitors on the whole stuck to family-rated content.
M2 nonetheless showed that other, racier and potentially more profitable applications for VR exist, with the adult entertainment industry usually quick to adopt new ways to distribute its content.
The organizers said 614 companies and groups are exhibiting at this year’s exhibition, which runs until tomorrow.
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