Known for kickstarting its original Kat Walk VR treadmill in 2015, Kat VR returned to the crowdfunding platform last month to launch the second generation of its ‘Kat Walk C’ VR treadmill, which again promises to appeal to at-home consumers. Having reached its initial funding goal in the first five minutes of launch, Kat VR went on to rack up over $2 million in crowdfunding before close of the campaign.
KatVR recently ended its latest VR treadmill Kickstarter with $2,116,680, garnered from 1,411 backers. The studio says in a recent update that they’re “on the right tracks to begin the shipping according to our original schedule and ship out the first units starting from June of 2022.”
“Due to a large number of supporters, we may not be able to ship out all the units of C2 and C2+ at the same time, but we’ve put very heavy efforts into achieving a high production capacity and can promise to you that everyone who supported us on the Kickstarter will receive the rewards soon,” the studio says in the update.
In the meantime, the company is continuing pre-sale through its own website, pricing units starting at $1,098, which is $100 more than the unlimited tier offered through the Kickstarter before its close last week. The original article follows below:
KatVR has surpassed $1 million, and is now currently boasting $1.2 million garnered with 23 days left in the campaign. At the moment, this puts the new campaign around 72.3 percent of the way to matching the company’s Kat Walk C Kickstarter from 2020, which secured $1.66 million over the course of 30 days. Considering the original Kat Walk C hit the $1 million mark in under 24 hours, this could suggest the new campaign is slightly behind, although not by much.
Now over the $1 million mark, the campaign has also unlocked a few stretch goals, including magnetic cable connections at the $500,000 mark, and now “10+ demo games” that are guaranteed to work with Kat Walk C2. Additionally, Kat VR says in an update its creating an “open developer platform” for the device, which it will publish so devs can add native Kat Walk support to their games.
Kat VR has a reason to celebrate, as the KAT Walk C2 campaign blasted past its $300,000 goal in the first five minutes of going live on Saturday. At the time of this writing, the campaign has currently garnered around $930,000.
This, Kat VR says in an update, has also unlocked the first stretch goal, which includes magnetic cable connections instead of standard plug-in style cables. Stretch goals unlock at $1 million increments, which illustrates just how high the team’s hopes are that the campaign can continue its meteoric momentum.
Currently only the unlimited $998 tier is available, as early bird pricing has been completely snapped up. You can check out the Kat Walk C2 Kickstarter here to follow along.
There’s a number of early bird pricing tiers for project supporters (see below), however an unlimited tier for latecomers is set at $998. While you might think that’s not exactly a consumer price point, larger enterprise models such as the Virtuix Omni One and the original Kat Walk can retail in the multiple thousands of dollars and weigh at least 226 kg (500 lbs). The Kat Walk C2 series is said to weigh around 54 kg (120 lbs).
Like previous models, the company says users will able able to play free locomotion VR games using PC VR and PSVR, and also Quest via Link or Air Link.
Here’s a look at the pricing tiers coming to the Kickstarter on May 14th, all of which will be available in limited quantities:
- C2: Super KATer Extra Early Bird – $698 + Delivery
- C2: Extra Early-Bird – $798 + Delivery
- C2: Early-Bird – $898 + Delivery
- C2: Special Kickstarter Offer – $998 + Delivery
The company is also producing a ‘C2 Plus’ model, which includes haptic feedback integrated into the treadmill’s base and the ability to sit down. That is being sold as an add-on priced at $200 across all tiers above, making the unlimited tier $1,198.
Kat VR says the first units of Kat Walk C 2 are expected to be shipped out as early as in July of 2022.