If you are interested in following the goings-on in the world of virtual reality, one of blogs you should read regularly is by an Italian guy named Tony Vitillo (a.k.a. SkarredGhost), whose blog, The Ghost Howls, often has reviews of products and interesting news reports about the VR industry. I admire Tony for daring to follow his dream to turn his love for VR into a full-time business!
And recently Tony’s company, New Technology Walkers, announced HitMotion: Reloaded, the first fitness game using pass-through mixed reality on the Vive Focus Plus headset:
New Technology Walkers today announces that its first game “HitMotion: Reloaded” has been released worldwide on Viveport M. This is the first fitness game in pass-through mixed reality ever released and at the beginning will be exclusive for the Vive Focus Plus, the only device offering this functionality in a reliable way. The price is $5.59/€4.99/RMB39.90.
The game had been announced by NTW’s co-founder Antony “Skarredghost” Vitillo during the Vive Ecosystem Conference 2019 in Shenzhen, China as one of the launch titles for the Vive Focus Plus. In these months, the game has gone through a complete overhaul, passing from the free tech demo released in March to a complete game distributed worldwide now.
Here’s a 30-second promotional trailer for the new game:
One advantage of using the Vive Focus Plus wireless headset is that the game can use the pass-through mixed-reality feature to avoid you accidentally punching holes in any of your walls, or breaking any furniture! Given the rise of VR headset accidents (leading to the posting of mishaps to places like the VRtoER subReddit group), this is potentially a major selling point for HitMotion: Reloaded.
However, the Vive Focus Plus is still a newer headset, so not that many people own it yet, and HitMotion is not yet available for any other models of VR headsets. Whether or not it will be appearing on other headsets depends heavily on how much they will be able to improve their pass-through vision. I don’t think we can expect to see this game appearing for the popular Oculus Rift or HTC Vive headsets anytime soon.
This is another example of an expanding market for VR use: personal fitness. Many people are already working out, getting fit, and losing weight using VR apps such as Beat Saber. I wish Tony every success in his endeavour, and I look forward to seeing what other VR/AR/XR fitness apps will be appearing in the future.
If you want more information about HitMotion: Reloaded, here is their website, their Facebook page, and their Instagram. You can also follow Tony on Twitter.
Thanks a lot Ryan, I loved your article! Kudos to all HitMotion team, like the game designer Massimiliano Ariani and MID Studio that curated the graphics of the game!