There’s no doubt we’re coming to an age of wildly immersive gaming, with products like the Oculus Rift and the Omni Treadmill looking to hit the consumer market soon. The KOR-FX 4DFX gaming vest is hoping to be a part of that future, bringing environmental feedback with every movement, bullet, and explosion you experience in the game.
Worn across the chest and shoulders like a… umm… sports bra, the gaming accessory converts audio coming from the game into precise high-definition haptic feedback that lets you feel the ensuing action. It’s not just a rumble pack that will vibrate using motors either. Instead, it causes precise haptic effects in your body that resemble how the chest cavity will vibrate when similar events happen in real life. That means, even if you don’t get hit with a direct bullet to the chest, it will still provide the appropriate physical reaction that will take place if the in-game situation were real, whether that be feeling an IED detonated 10 feet away, watching a bullet barely miss you on an FPS, or having your car crash into another car during a race.
The KOR-FX 4DFX uses transducers to convert audio into haptic output that echoes into the chest cavity, essentially turning it into an instrument for experiencing the environmental sensations in a game. Since it only depends on audio, it’s not limited to games either — you can use it to change how music and movies feel as well (imagine using this while laid back in your Prima Cinema). It is fully-customizable, so you can dial up or dial down the ensuing feedback, putting you in complete charge of the experience.
To use, simply wear the vest (one size fits all), then plug it into a 3.5mm audio port or use the included dongle to operate wirelessly. Once that’s set up, just start playing and you should feel the action immediately. The vest requires four AA batteries to operate, which should be enough to power it for up to 49 hours of play.
Neither pricing nor release dates are available yet for the KOR-FX 4DFX, although it is slated to come out sometime during the year.