Man, times have changed. Back when I was getting Happy Meals, they usually came with some cheap plastic trinket or maybe a tiny plush Woody from Toy Story. Now, kids get an unusual, and useful, addition to their Happy Meal prize.
In Sweden, McDonald's updated its iconic Happy Meal box so that it can be folded into a virtual reality viewer, à la Google Cardboard. The viewer is, naturally, called "Happy Goggles." Happy Meal buyers can then slide a smartphone inside and play a VR video game on their Happy Goggles.
The move seems like something we might expect on April Fool's Day, but it's legit.
“We’re trying to be a modern and progressive burger company,” Jeff Jackett, marketing director of McDonald’s in Sweden, told The Wall Street Journal. “It’s not a joke.”
More and more mainstream companies are starting to embrace virtual reality. The New York Times sent out Google Cardboard to its subscribers in November. At the Sundance Film Festival this year, several short virtual reality films debuted. To get more VR content out there, Samsung and others have begun releasing affordable 360-degree cameras for shooting video.
As for McDonald's version, the game you can play on Happy Goggles is called “Watch Out on the Slopes" (when translated to English). In the game, you're a skier navigating a snowy slalom course and you must avoid furry obstacles, such as bunnies. Unlike a traditional smartphone game, where you're limited to what's on the screen, you've got a full 360 degrees of gameplay, which you control by turning your head different directions.
Apparently, McDonald's in the U.S. doesn't have any plans to launch Happy Goggles just yet, which is a shame, because this bunny-dodging ski game sounds amazing.
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