Virtual reality company VirZOOM, a maker of VR games designed for its VR Bike Controller, is launching vSports competitions with the help of fitness equipment companies Fitbit and Life Fitness and also HTC.
VirZOOM announced Thursday it held the first live vSports competition at a private CES event, enabling competitors in its multiplayer virtual reality games to combine strategy, coordination and fitness in pedaling their way through racetracks, battlegrounds, skies and countryside worlds.
The company is collaborating with vSports Centers around the country to host a public nationwide vSports tournament this year where players can compete using HTC Vive for prizes.
Initial vSports Centers locations include eBash Video Game Centers (Indiana), Game Haven of Connecticut, Game Republik (Texas), GameTyrant (Utah), LAN Mob Gaming Center (New York), Newton Gaming Center (Massachusetts), Novastar Gaming Center (Kansas), Section 9 Cyber Cafe (North Dakota), Sphere Virtual Reality Arcade (Ohio), UCI eSports Arena (Southern California), Virtual World Arcade (Northern California), VR Junkies (Utah, New Mexico, New York, Minnesota) and Wyandotte Athletic Club (Ohio).
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VirZOOM customers in the future will be able to compete and stream vSports competitions from home, according to the company.
“VirZOOM vSports is a critical component to building out the ever-growing Vive ecosystem,” HTC VIVE vice president of virtual reality Dan O’Brien said in a statement. “We built Vive to deliver the most immersive VR experience on the market today. Companies like VirZOOM help us meet this vision and we’re excited to see what vSports offers to the motivating factors in a VR experience.”
Fitbit and Life Fitness were not only among the sponsors of the private VirZOOM competition, but also are partnering with the company to emphasize the value of the exercise that comes with the VR gaming that’s done with bike controllers.
VirZOOM will integrate with Fitbit and offer a gamified VR fitness experience that is engaging and motivating for its customers to reach their fitness goals. VirZOOM VR bike play will automatically sync to Fitbit accounts, giving customers credit toward their goals and capturing workout duration, distance pedaled, calories burned and heart rate data in the Fitbit app.
“At Fitbit, we are focused on constantly innovating and partnering with brands like VirZOOM that want to break down boundaries and find fun and engaging ways to help users reach their exercise goals,” Tim Rosa, SVP and Chief Marketing Officer at Fitbit, said in a statement. “We’ve seen a direct correlation between gamification of fitness and the motivation it provides our users. We believe we’ll see even more VR games incentivize and reward consumers for healthy behavior, reinforcing the link between activity and gaming performance.”
VirZOOM’s co-marketing and pilot partnership with Life Fitness enables the gameplay to be used with fitness equipment at commercial fitness facilities this year. The VirZOOM Module can transform Life Fitness Platinum Club Series and Elevator Series Discover SE3 bike models into VR bikes that provide data compatible with VirZOOM Arcade.
“Introducing virtual reality to our Life Fitness equipment is an exciting step in the evolution of providing completely immersive and engaging experiences to workouts,” Amad Amin, Life Fitness product director of digital experience, said in a statement “Our partnership with VirZOOM is a natural next step in building on our workout experience. Whether you are competitive or want to escape and enjoy your workout, there is something in the virtual reality experience for everyone.”