PrioVR mo-cap gaming suit meets Oculus Rift

Its Kickstarter campaign may have failed, but the PrioVR gaming suit has made a stunning reappearance at CES partnered with Oculus VR for a full virtual-reality experience.

For some reason, PrioVR — a motion-capture system that translates your physical actions into a gaming environment — didn't get a lot of traction when creator YEI Technology launched a Kickstarter campaign in September of last year, not even reaching half of its US$225,000 funding goal.

Using a series of inertial sensors strapped to the players's body, the suit captures motion data and transferred it wirelessly into a game in real-time so that kicks, punches and other movements could be performed physically, making for a more immersive gaming experience.

The Kickstarter campaign, it now appears, was not the end of PrioVR: it has reappeared now at this year's Consumer Electronics Show, partnered with the creator of hotly anticipated virtual reality headset Oculus Rift, Oculus VR. The two virtual-reality technologies are due to appear together in a live gaming demonstration later this week in a new version.

Previously, the PrioVR was only going to see two iterations, both for full body. The new version is a half-body unit only for the torso that will allow a gamer to sit in a chair while playing — eliminating the potential for stumbling while blinded by the Oculus Rift, or allowing gamers with limited space to enjoy mo-cap gaming.

"We learned from the gaming community, who are brutally honest, what they expected to see and what they wanted," YEI CEO Paul Yost told CNET.

The company plans to launch a new Kickstarter on 14 February, with its revised half-body unit, with a target goal of US$100,000. The half-body suit will be modular, so that players can add more sensors for a full-body gaming experience later on.

You can see the original PrioVR in action in the video below.