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Sword Art Online: The Beginning Project is IBM’s collaboration project which shows off their virtual reality capabilities with the help of Reki Kawahara’s Sword Art Online light novel series. Daisuki.net was present during the “Alpha Tests” for the project, and they featured a special 10-minute video which detailed the happenings during these “tests.”
The video featured the “Alpha Testers” getting themselves scanned to create their avatars before exploring a virtual world inspired by Sword Art Online. Once there, they experienced things from picking up items to hacking and slashing monsters, just like in the anime.
The hardware used to simulate the experience was dubbed as the “Nervegear Prototype,” and used a variety of different hardware to truly simulate the experience, including the Oculus Rift and the Leap Motion and Ovrvision, and even Microsoft’s Kinect 2.
Nearly 10,000 applicants tried out, however, only the 208 people mentioned above were chosen. While IBM is not really trying to create VRMMOs, some fans were even impressed, with one man who participated saying that “IBM is Amazing.”
