Samsung, Six Flags Get Together for Virtual Reality Roller Coasters

Starting to think about those summer getaways? It’s really not too soon, but Samsung and Six Flags are getting together to potentially make you change the way you see vacation time.

Those thinking about a theme park trip may be particularly interested, as the duo has a new technological prospect.

The combined effort brings Samsung’s Gear VR headsets to several of Six Flags’ roller coasters in a bid to create a whole new breed of theme park.

Normal theme park rides are interesting enough, but with Samsung Gear VR, the experience ratchets up to include background effects, allowing the user to effectively soar through space, ride through a fantasy battle, or experience any of several other options.

Those who want to give this a try will be able to starting later this month, reports note, for customers in southern California, Georgia and Texas and more to follow.

There are some issues to consider when it comes to the arrangement as stated; I don’t know about you, but I’m not in a big hurry to wear Gear VR devices that have been worn by hundreds of people before me, particularly on a hot day where everyone’s sweating.

Naturally, these will likely be cleaned by park staff, but park staff is often already overworked and may well miss a round.

That’s all but certain to be the case, and definitely could prove as the kind of thing that makes a theme park that much more exciting. I can’t help but wonder, however, just why the Gear VR needs the theme park to begin with.

Sure, it’d be easier to add to the immersion factor with the program presented on a device that’s already rocketing forward and swooping and banking at high rates of speed, but surely this same speed can be presented on a device that completely covers the eyes and can present at least the illusion of depth.

Why is Six Flags participating in what may well prove its demise? Why would we need roller coasters any more when we can simply sit in our easy chairs at home and cruise any coaster, or coaster-esque experience, we may desire?

For a brick-and-mortar retail community that’s thinking about experiences as being the ultimate salvation of a local tax base, this may well be the death knell of such a notion.