While console sales still heavily rely on physical sales as well as digital, PC owners are much more used to buying their videogames online through platforms like Steam. So when virtual reality (VR) headsets arrived that digital trend continued. The only headset to offer physical copies is PlayStation VR, and today two VR racers are available to purchase at retail locations across North America, Radial-G: Racing Revolved and VR Karts.
Radial-G is the creation of British studio Tammeka Games, arriving on Oculus Rift first then followed by HTC Vive the same year. It’s taken a little longer to come to PlayStation VR, having only just launched on the US PlayStation Store last month and the EU store in September. EU retailers got physical copies that same month and now its the turn of North America.
The title is a futuristic racer that offers both single-player and multiplayer modes, testing players’ reaction times with its twists, jumps, splits and inverted racing on tubular anti-gravity tracks. To add to the mayhem players are equipped with an assortment of weapons to get that edge over opponents. Radial-G: Racing Revolved will retail for $39.99.
In an email to VRFocus, Tameka Games’ Sam Watts shared his excitement about the launch: “Many things are unpredictable in games development and the age old statement ‘Coming Soon(TM)’ is always undefined but this final piece of the anti-gravity racing puzzle finally comes together with the US and Canadian territories release of the game in a boxed form. Having been available for a number of weeks on the PlayStation Store digitally, it’s great to see high street retail store PS VR sections expanding with more titles available. As a little indie dev team punching above their weight since the re-inception of VR in 2013, getting a physical product on shelves is a big, costly task and we’re grateful to be working with Perpetual to enable us to do so. Once again, much respect to Shuhei Yoshida for turning our virtual dream into physical reality!”
PlayStation VR owners after a racer that’s a bit more down to earth then there’s VR Karts. Another VR title that originally debuted in 2016, VR Karts is the work of Viewpoint Games. A family-friendly kart racing videogame, players can customise their karts, race through deserts, jungles, castles and more, in the light of day or at night, and against up to six players online. VR Karts will retail for $29.99.
Both these launches are the work of Perp Games, the publishing arm of Perpetual Europe. “Game developers are just getting started with unlocking the true potential in virtual reality gaming,” said Mickey Torode, director of publishing at Perpetual. “We are looking forward to continue working with these amazing developers on bringing titles like these and many others to players pining for deeper, more complex VR content to experience.”
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