McDonald’s is testing a $4 VR headset

The latest big company to enter the virtual reality market may surprise you: it’s McDonald’s.

The fast food chain is trialling a VR headset design formed from the company’s iconic Happy Meal box (via Adweek).

Much like Google Cardboard’s origami-friendly construction, the card packaging is combined with included lenses and folded to house a mobile phone, which then can be made to run the first VR title released by McDonald’s, snow-skiing game Slope Stars.

Approximately 3,500 of the Happy Goggles have been made available across 14 restaurants in Sweden, priced at just over $4.

While the Swedish test run has been sparked by the ‘Sportlov’ national holiday, McDonald’s hinted that the headset could be launched around the world in the future.

Citing child psychologists Karl Eder and Fadi Lahdo in its announcement of the headset, McDonald’s highlighted VR’s social benefits, saying that the experts had deemed that “gaming can be a good joint activity that makes it easier to hang out".

Personally, we reckon ‘Maccy VR’ is a better name.