Theme parks are always looking for the newest way to entertain visitors with attractions, whether that’s with bigger, faster rollercoasters, 4D cinemas, or for 2016, virtual reality (VR). US company Six Flags Entertainment has already implemented several VR attractions at its parks and Alton Towers and Thorpe Park in the UK have theirs. Now EXA Global – a wholly owned subsidiary of Havson Group Berhad – has announced plans to build to create a VR theme park in Malaysia.
Unlike Six Flags or Alton Towers which have added VR to existing rollercoasters with visitors wearing a Samsung Gear VR, EXA Global is going down the route of THE VOID in the US or Zero Latency in Australia, whereby guests enter a large empty building/space wearing a VR headset, a computer backpack and a gun to freely move around the area, all the while in VR.
Based in Puchong, Malaysia, EXA Global is creating the experience in-house through sister companies or subsidiaries. The company’s hardware research is provided by their wholly owned subsidiary, Dutajaya Media (DJM), an ASEAN VR tech company and the first VR R&D centre in Malaysia. While sister company Mediasoft is responsible for the gaming content in EXA Global.
This year Havson Group as a Malaysian representative, won Create@Alibaba Cloud’s Start-up Contest (CACSC), beating 12 selected startups from Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia. The event was the first global entrepreneur contest organized by Alibaba Cloud in partnership with Infocomm Investments, held on 26th August 2016.
“To pioneer an industry is not a trivial feat. Havson is composed of very experienced leaderships in gaming, theme park management and hardware research,” said Daniel Tan, CEO at Next Unicorn Ventures who has lead the venture firm to invest in the company’s seed round. “The beta version I tested at the facility makes me talk about them all the time, I believe we have a winner.”
As VRFocus learns more about EXA Global’s VR experience we’ll let you know.