The Tanita-developed twin joysticks that will support A Certain Magical Virtual-On and the upcoming Virtual-On PlayStation 4 ports of the first three games has reached its crowdfunding goal, less than 12 hours after its launch. [Thanks, 4Gamer!]
*Image use
If you’re wondering why this stick looks so different from what was originally conceived and shown off back in June, that is because this is a revised version that was revealed as part of a second attempt, as the first campaign ended in July in failure.
The goal this time (Campfire page here) was 44,600,000 yen total, a notable step down from 277,000,000 yen from last time. As the crowdfunding procedure is an all-or-nothing venture, Tanita decided to aim for around 1,000 starting units, which have all been allocated now, instead of the 5,000 starting units planned for the previous campaign.
Tanita president Senri Tanita
As expected, Tanita revealed via press release that announcement of the Virtual-On ports for PlayStation 4 spurred a sudden increase in interest in the product, which led to the campaign being fully funded 11 hours and 26 minutes after the launch on Campfire. Interestingly, this is also the first large-scale crowdfunding project to reach such a goal this quickly on Campfire.
The finished product is set to ship out to the backers on November 27, 2019, on the anniversary of Virtual-On’s release. After the production of the 1,000 units, Tanita will look into making more based on interest.
A Certain Magical Virtual-On is available on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita. The first three Virtual-On games, Virtual On: Cyber Troopers, Cyber Troopers Virtual-On Oratorio Tangram, and Cyber Troopers Virtual-On Force are headed to PS4.
