Category: Analysis
EXA Global Unlocks New Hyper-Reality Experience in Malaysia at SetiaWalk Outpost
EXA Global, under the umbrella of digital entertainment and technology company Havson Group is unveiling Malaysia’s first ever Hyper Reality Experience at Setiawalk EXA Outpost.
Referred by EXA Global as South-East Asia’s first ever Hyper-Reality Family Entertainment Center, players will be able to experience a fully immersive, wireless, free-roaming gaming experience at EXA Outpost. This is made possible thanks to the combination of highly advanced virtual reality technologies like untethered backpack setup and multi-user motion capture system employed by EXA Global.
Richard Lee, the CEO of EXA Global explained that engagement is core to the project designed by the team. The focus is to get players involved in the technology to become part of the story.
“Getting the right module, enhancing the formula, experience and content are key components when creating and building an immersive advanced technology to have people sharing their hyper-reality experience with others,” said Lee.
Richard Lee, the CEO of EXA Global
Upon its launching, EXA Outpost will be featuring an exclusive VR multiplayer sci-fi shooter and space exploration mission, named EXA Dimension 12. Imagine role-playing Starship Troopers or Mass Effect in a fully immersive space dimension, that’s what the EXA Dimension 12 is all about. In the mission, players known as Troopers will first be transported to the Ingress room, where they will receive their EXA gears (guns, backpacks, and other wearables) for the upcoming exploration. Once geared up, players will then be dispatched and transported to the Dimension 12, it is here that the players will ride along a thrilling storyline, receive instructions to investigate unexplored regions, and fight off vicious extra-dimensional monsters with a diversified profile of advanced weaponries.
“Being that part of the story for our players is important to us, as we know experience is something valuable we at EXA Global can offer,” said Lee.
EXA Dimension 12, being fully developed in-house by EXA Global, is a respectable feat demonstrated by the talents of the team. For EXA Global, being able to develop content in-house also means they are not reliant on 3rd party developers for their future VR content. This opens a door to a promising future for EXA Global as they are free to develop any content that falls inline with their business strategy. In fact, this advantageous edge can already be observed as EXA Global has already started working on additional VR contents that revolve around horror and kids-friendly themes to expand their content portfolio.
EXA Outpost houses spacious room to allow a free roaming VR experience.
Moving forward, the company notes that it is planning to open future locations around the world, targeting North America, Europe, Middle East, South Asia, East Asia, Australia, and the neighboring countries surrounding Malaysia. Bigger flagship centers ranging from 10,000 square feet to football size venue will also be opened in future to house a bigger crowd, according to Lee.
Other than looking for rapid market expansion, the company is also looking to upgrade its VR hardware to further improve its hyper-reality experience. In the upcoming future, EXA Global will be developing a full body suit with haptic feedback that is mapped according to traditional Chinese acupuncture points to improve the surrealism of the game. Other wearables like VR gloves and augmented reality (AR) wristband will also be developed alongside the full body suit.
EXA gears in action.
Another noteworthy future expansion for EXA Global is the development of VR eSport. With the rise of eSport in recent years, it is also part of EXA Global’s strategy to tap into this trend and pioneer the VR eSport scene. To achieve this, offering player-vs-player (PvP) experience at its VR centers will be one of the upcoming focuses for EXA Global. Seeing the success of eSports giants like Dota 2 (offering a prize pool of whopping $20,770,460 USD for its tournament) and League of Legend (having an active monthly user base of 100 millions players), the potential of VR as the future mainstream eSport is definitely a huge one.
“As part of the creative and innovative pioneer in digital entertainment and technology Havson Group, between ourselves we aim to create the ultimate immersive Hyper-Reality Studio experience within this region,” said Lee.
Located at SetiaWalk, Puchong, EXA Outpost consists of two rooms whereby one is dedicated to the games while the other is a Hyper Reality Arcade Entertainment Center where players can play VR arcade games. Open for public starting from 3rd of June, for those who wants to take a deep dive into the hyper-reality experience, players can now book for a pair of ticket at a promotional pricing of RM65 on their official website: https://www.exa-global.com/booking.php
Black Friday Sales Mark All-Time-High With Mobile Revenue Exceeding US$1 Billion
An American tradition, this year Thanksgiving has marked the start of a sales frenzy which continues on Black Friday and ends on the note of CyberMonday. The three holidays lined up to make the most frenzied shopping spree that leads up to the busy Christmas period which is lying only a month away.
But it is not just the United States. As consumers from across the world had spent more than US$5.3 billion in the two-days sales starting on Thanksgiving last Thursday which was extended to Black Friday. This figure accounts for an 18 percent increase from the previous year, according to a report from Adobe Systems.
In this scenario, Amazon, the giant internet business says that Thanksgiving is gradually becoming the new Black Friday as the company noted that some of its site’s Best Black Friday deals have already heated up during the “Turkey 5”.
However, when evaluating just Black Friday, the sales remains the highest as compared to Thanksgiving. The popular shopping festivity accounted for an estimated US$3.34 billion by the end of the day, which is a 21.6 percent increase from the same day last year, as according to Adobe Systems.
But comparatively, this year more buyers were going online for bargains and convenience instead of the traditional campout outside bricks and mortar shop. That is to say, online sales has outshined offline sales with spending via mobile devices on Friday in the United States seeing an increase of 33 percent to an all-time high of US$1.2 billion.
These results were not unexpected as it was clear from the start that the mobile platform has a significant impact on e-commerce sales, looking at Alibaba’s Singles Day Sales which was held on November 11. Furthermore, mobile platforms are proved to be the more convenient option for customers as they can perform their shopping anywhere, anytime and in any way.
Similarly, major retailers, like Amazon, Walmart, Target and eBay, noted that mobile traffic and sales were on the rise. Amazon said that mobile orders on Thanksgiving topped Cyber Monday last year, for example, while Walmart said that over 70 percent of website traffic on Thanksgiving was mobile. Target said that 60 percent of Thanksgiving sales were from mobile devices.
What is interesting, however as reported by Adobe, is that smartphones do not drive as many conversions as tablets and desktops. Because while conversions have as a whole increased, smartphone conversions were the lowest at 1.9 percent, as compared with the conversion rates of tablets at 3.7 percent and desktops at 4 percent. Holiday averages also show a similar trend where it was still the lowest for smartphones at 1.3 percent, while tablets and desktop are 2.9 percent and 3.2 percent respectively.
These results obtained in the Adobe’s report was based on aggregated and anonymous data from 22.6 billion visits to retail websites and consist of 80 percent of all online transactions from the top 100 U.S. retailers. Though it may be argued that Adobe’s sample does not cover the entirety of the scenario but still the sample is large enough for its numbers to be fairly close.
Additionally, Adobe also noted this year’s top-selling electronics which were Apple iPads, Samsung 4K TVs, the Apple Macbook Air, LG TVs and Microsoft Xbox. While top-selling toys included Lego Creator Sets, electric scooters from Razor, Nerf Guns, DJI Phantom Drones, and Barbie Dreamhouse.
“The negative impact on online shopping we saw following the election has not been fully made up, but consumers are back online and shopping,” said Tamara Gaffney, principal analyst, and director, Adobe Digital Insights, in a statement. “As spending ramps up on Black Friday, we are back on track. We still expect Cyber Monday to surpass Black Friday and become the largest online sales day in history with $3.36 Billion.”
On another note, a promotional email which reads “President-elect Trump loves a great deal” shows that even the President-elect Donald Trump has participated in the online sales excitement. On Friday morning, Trump’s online store has made an announcement that it was offering a 30 percent off deal on all campaign products, which includes a US$149 Christmas ornament.
For more information, please visit Adobe Online Shopping Data
By Vivian Foo, Unicorn Media
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