Earlier this year, I considered and tried out the Secret Labs and Shaq chairs and decided against buying either one of them. Did buy our oldest son for his birthday The Joker chair and uploaded short vids to Tiktok of both my wife and I sitting in it for the first time. Both those chairs were around the $700 USD mark, but they were inexpensive compared to the badboy featured here.
In fact, we could have bought three of those chairs for the price of one of the “world’s first haptic gaming chair” the CMODX Motion 1 (https://www.cmodx.com/shop/motion-1/).
Official video from Cooler Master:
The girl in that video is really getting bumped around. Can you imagine doing in a game frequently? Might get old. I surfed out some reviews on this from people that have actually tried these chairs. One media outlet, Wired reviewed this, giving it 7 out of 10:
When you’re in the mood, the Motion 1 is great fun, but I also found it quite tiring. Crazy maneuvers can leave you feeling nauseous. I enjoyed it for an hour or two, then was ready for a break. Your mileage may vary.
The Motion 1 chair is not just about gaming. It also works with D-Box’s catalog of 2,000 plus encoded movies and TV shows. It suits action and horror especially well.
These chairs remind me of the seats inside the Regal 4DX theaters. 4DX is a competitor of D-BOX, so it’s not the same technology, but I do have a real expereince with 4DX. My wife and I watched Rambo: Last Blood in 4DX at the Regal 4DX theater at the Red Rock in Las Vegas and on September 19, 2019, about four years ago as part of our 30th anniversary. Afterwards, reviewed the experience via Awesome 4DX First Experience Watching Rambo: Last Blood:
The seats are a bit stiff to sit in, but not uncomfortably so. Right before the preview trailers, they played the Regal roller coaster graphic and it is full on HDX activated. It felt a lot like we were actually riding a roller coaster. The seats shake, buzz, move side to side in a swaying boat motion as well as shift abruptly and dip forward and back, but not as such an extreme angle that you would go flying out. Meanwhile there are various scents spraying into the audience as well as light mists of water dripping. I noticeably felt water drops on my face multiple times during the screening.
These 4DX seats are commercial-grade, stiff and if you look at a picture of them: they do not look nearly as comfortable as what the Motion 1 looks like.
Not sure can see the case for spending over $2,500 USD after sales tax, although both of us thought the haptics in the movie theater chair were cool and added to the experience. Quite a bit different paying an extra 10 bones to watch a movie with this tech versus buying a chair for gaming that doesn’t even do everything that these 4DX chairs do (no scents or misting).
They are offering a couple perks for preorders for this chair, one of which is a game code for an Assassin’s Creed game:
The D-Box lifetime complimentary membership is worth … what? Trying to check it out on the D-Box site here: https://www.d-box.com/en/products/gaming — is it D-Box Plus(?) No, it appears to be a subscription to D-Box HapticSync subscription (I think) which offers access to: “Purchase a HaptiSync subscription, unlocking more than 2,500 movies, TV series, & more”. So, this means you can watch these 2,500 movies with haptics enabled at no additonal charge for buying one of these Motion 1 chairs? This sounds like a pretty enticing perk for people that enjoy this perk, but not sure this is what’s actually happening. Definitely something requiring clarification.
Dug around some more, signed up for a free account and found the regular D-Box HaptiSync subscription cost: $89 USD per year.
After more research, it seems this D-Box technology only syncs up movies you have with the encoding to deliver the haptic experience, it doens’t include access to the movies themselves. Too bad, as that would have been an interesting deal. So, what you really appear to be receiving is a really expensive chair that requires a subscription service to unlock/sync the encoding to watch movies and/or play games(?)
Here’s another review video to watch on the Motion 1 chair from IGN:
Good points from the reviewer, particularly those two cords(!). Yikes on that. I can totally see rolling over those.
OPINION: Although, I do like the idea of haptics in some situations, like a movie or limited gaming, not sure I’m getting much FOMO for it as a regular activity in the game room. It’s not just the price — although for $2,500 it would need to be something we used fairly often — it’s also the thought of bouncing and vibrating around here and there might, as the reviewer said, get a bit tiring. It’s not an outright “no way”, but it’s also not a “must buy now” situation either. Am a little curious. Don’t think $2,500 curious, but not completely dismissing. Think for racing games, why wouldn’t somebody just do a full blown racing setup? For movies it kind of works, but why not go with a movie recliner that is even more comfortable? Also, there doesn’t seem to be enough games programmed for this at the present time, and can’t see myself spending a bunch of time programming the seat to the games I want to play. Would rather spend that time playing.
What do you think? Interested in this? Want to see the price lower? Or do you think the price is fair? If you had one of these chairs in your game room, how much would you realistically use it? Discuss.