MSI’s VR Backpack debuts at TGS 2016, coming to Malaysia this December

MSI has performed the equivalent of a night march, pipping the rest of it’s competitors to the post by releasing a production model of their VR backpack that will be showcased at TGS 2016 in Japan. Dubbed the MSI VR One, the system is for all intents and purposes a man-portable VR-ready computer that’s crammed onto a backpack though you’ll have to augment it with other VR gear like the controllers and helmet from the HTC Vive for full functionality; incidentally, MSI has rated it to be fully HTC Vive compatible too so there may likely be more cooperation from both Taiwanese companies in future. 

The VR One comes with a pair of hot-swappable battery packs that are able to offer one and a half hours of gaming per battery though you can hook it up to a power adaptor if you’re looking to clock up some serious game time. Pragmatists will likely speculate that carrying something with that much pixel crunching power would likely generate a racket but in the case of the VR One, it’s actually quite the opposite as nine heat pipes and a pair of what they call ‘ultra blade’ fans keeps everything cool and under 41dBA so you won’t wake up the neighbours.

The specs are not completely firmed up yet, but odds are that it will come with an overclocked Intel Core i7, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 graphics card and come with a HDMI port, a Mini Display Port and a Thunderbolt 3 Type-C port along with a quartet of USB 3.0 ports. We’ll have more details when it makes its grand appearance at TGS this coming Thursday on September 15. In any case, official word is that the VR One will arrive in Malaysia sometime this December so get your plastic ready.