Virtual Reality Finds Perfect Application In High-End Sim Racing

For virtual reality to finally go mainstream, a few things need to happen.

First, the hardware needs to be able to handle the experience, as well as become available at a price point consumers can actually afford.

Then, a popular service needs to adopt the technology in a way its users take it seriously.

That’s currently happening in the world of realistic racing simulators. As far as iRacing president Tony Gardner was concerned, the decision to integrate VR capability in his product was a no-brainer.

“We definitely heard it from a small group of members (who wanted VR support), but based on everything we understood about it, it seemed like a racing game would be the perfect application for VR,” Gardner told NESN Fuel. “Everything in iRacing is already to scale. Since we laser-scan everything, we build the exact environment, so (when) using virtual reality nothing would look strange or funny — it looks right.