What's the biggest problem with PC-based virtual reality right now? Is it the price? The lack of deep gaming experiences? Or is it that darned cord that keeps you from properly leaping around like a lunatic while playing Space Pirate Trainer? For the PC manufacturers gathered at Computex 2016 in Taiwan, it's very much the latter. Yes, in a weird and quite frankly surprising trend, HP, MSI, Gigabyte, and Zotac are all showing off backpack-based PCs for free-to-roam VR gaming.

Now, I know what you're thinking, and yes, you could just pick up a powerful gaming laptop—one of those GTX 980-based ones should do the trick—stick some shoulder straps on it, and call it a day. Indeed, that's precisely what Gigabyte did with its Aorus X7 DT laptop earlier this year, creating a custom holster for lugging the huge 17.3-inch, 3.44kg (7.6lb) device around. But this brings with it some issues, namely that a laptop's cooling system isn't really designed for being used in a backpack. That's not to the mention that, at least in the case of the Aorus, gaming laptops have terrible battery life.

MSI claims to have solved these problems with its Backpack PC, a wonderfully garish system that packs a 6th-gen (Skylake) Core i7 Intel processor, Nvidia GTX 980 GPU, and a battery rated for up to 90 minutes of gaming into a bright red LED-lit backpack. Weighing in at around 5kg (12lb), the Backpack PC isn't exactly light, but it does offer niceties such as being fully upgradeable (MSI is planning to bump up the GPU to a GTX 1080 in later versions), as well as a user replaceable battery. Ports are mounted at the top of the backpack for hooking up a VR headset (there's a power socket for the Vive's breakout box), and you can use the system as an odd-looking desktop PC too.

Naturally, price and availability remain a mystery, although MSI has hinted that the Backpack PC may turn up towards the end of year, just in time for the holiday season.

Those after something sooner should check out the catchily titled HP Omen X VR PC Pack Hardware Development Kit. Due for release to developers in June, the Omen X sports a Skylake Core i5 or Core i7 processor, an M.2 SSD, up to 32GB of video memory, and a power jack for plugging in the HTC Vive's breakout box. Unfortunately, HP hasn't revealed what GPU (or GPUs) are inside the Omen X, but hopefully it'll be a standard PCIe graphics card rather than the more exotic MXM standard typically used in high-end laptops.

At just under 10lbs (4.5kg), the Omen X is lighter than MSI's device. Its headline feature appears to be space for up to four hot-swappable batteries (two are included), each pair giving users around an hour or so of use. (Presumably with all four batteries included it would be heavier than the MSI backpack.)

Finally, if none of those tickle your fancy, Zotac has a backpack-based VR solution that shoves one of its small form factor Zbox PCs inside a backpack. The company hasn't revealed full technical details of the device just yet—more is promised at Computex later this week—but it should be one of the lighter solutions given just how tiny its Zbox PCs are.

All of these devices are a stopgap solution to a problem that will probably be solved by headset makers at some point in the not-to-distant future, and it's highly unlikely that home users are going to pick up a backpack PC over a traditional PC. That said, for commercial installations and activity days—think paintball, but in VR—these backpack PCs could prove useful. And with places like Thorpe Park already planning on integrating VR headsets into rides, they might just pop up in the wild sooner rather than later.