Sony’s Mocap Device Lets ‘VRChat’ Users Unleash Their Inner Anime Girl – Tech Live Trends

There are a few body tracking solutions on the market to help you on your quest to finally transform into a dancing anime girl, and Sony is now releasing its own previously Japan-only device in the US. 

Mocopi, which gets its name from motion capture (mocap), was initially announced in late 2022, becoming available exclusively in Japan in early 2023. While a ton of vTubers worldwide already jumped the gun and ordered direct from Japan, now Sony is making it officially available in the US, priced at $450.

Mocopi comes with six small and lightweight inertial measurement unit (IMU) sensors that hook into a dedicated smartphone app (iOS and Android), letting you do full-body motion tracking both in and outside of VR.

And while Mocopi seems to be squarely targeting those would-be vTubers, another use case the company is trumpeting is undoubtably the device’s ability to give avatars better full-body tracking for things like VRChat. Yes, there’s a built-in VRChat integration, which means you can grab your Quest 2 or PC VR headset, hook up Mocopi to your extremities, and get dancing for all to see.

Like many such IMU-based tracking devices, positional drift is a real concern, although it seems Sony is pitching this more as a way to casually jump into body tracking and not get that 100 percent accuracy you’ll need when doing the [fill in a popular dance] on TikTok.

Coming from Sony, you’d think there would be some sort of integration with PSVR 2, although that doesn’t seem to be a possibility. The company hasn’t mentioned any such integration since it initially launched in Japan in January.

Mocopi is already available for purchase, available exclusively from Sony for $450. Sony says Mocopi orders will ship to customers starting July 14th, 2023. Check out the Sony’s quick start guide below to get see just what you’re signing up for.