Cherryflava

Planned virtual reality gaming releases set to make YOU the next star of The Matrix

Posted on 10. Jan, 2008 by Jonathan Cherry in Technology

Yesterday, on our weekly CapeTalk radio spot, we stuck our necks out and suggested exciting marketing opportunities linked with this year’s predicted explosion of MMO’s / alternative reality gaming  / Second Life-type games.

Up until now, the only real examples of this channel have been World of Warcraft and Second Life, but those were just the beginning.

Last year Playstation announced (last year in March; the
service was supposed to go live in December but has been
postponed for late 2008 release) their online platform called Home, which is a free download for all PS3 owners.
Home is a virtual online world of private and public spaces, occupied by customisable avatars who can share their digital content and social time with others.

Here’s the pre-launch trailer to give you a better idea.

Much like Second Life, the opportunities for commercial involvement are huge. (more)

Another one to watch – the Beijing municipality in partnership with private capital (and with
help from MindArk of Sweden) is planning a virtual world for around
150m avatars, of which 7m could be online at the same time. This is so
far above the capability of the much-hyped Second Life, which rarely
has more than 50,000 online concurrently.

This site, now under construction, will have all the infrastructure
(server farms, communication links, electricity, banking links,
logistics etc) needed to make this the world’s one-stop shop for
consumers and producers. China, which is hosting a conference on the
subject next month, wants companies around the globe to set up here -
the likes of Cisco, IBM or western virtual worlds – to take advantage
of state-of-the art communications, infrastructure and (for the moment)
cheap wages. It could be a difficult proposition for many corporations
to resist. (more here)

So maybe we packed those Virtual Reality glasses and hand mitts away a bit too early. The Matrix is coming.