Cast your mind back to the middle of 2015 and you may remember a Kickstarter campaign by Chinese startup KatVR, looking to raise $100,000 USD for its omni-directional treadmill KAT Walk. It was ultimately successful, achieving just under $150,000. This week KatVR has updated its Facebook page, revealing that shipments have already begun to backers from China.
In the update the KatVR team state: “The KAT Walk has now started shipping to backers across China, so we thought we’d show you a video we received from one of the new owners, putting the product through its paces! As you can see, the KAT Walk allows for full 360 degree unrestricted movement at all speeds and heights. Of course, this movement needs to be translated into the game, and we’ll soon be releasing gameplay videos showing the KAT Walk in action with one of our own games, created by our very own development studio. New Kickstarter update coming soon, international shipping still estimated to begin in the middle of next month and lots more announcements to come in 2017!”
This will be good news for all KAT Walk backers who have been waiting for quite a while now. Originally the treadmill had an estimated delivery date of April 2016, but as can happen with Kickstarter projects this date slipped further and further.
Delays have become a common problem for omni-directional treadmill campaigns, but some have fared worse than others. Last month for example Virtuix, the company behind the Virtuix Omni announced that all customers outside of the US wouldn’t be getting their order due to shipping issues. And then there’s Cyberith with its Virtualizer treadmill, which ran a campaign way back in 2014 and still hasn’t yet seen the light of day, with its Kickstarter page featuring very sporadic updates.
VRFocus will continue its coverage of omni-directional treadmills, reporting back with any new updates.