The Nosulus Rift is a piece of VR kit designed for Ubisoft’s latest edition to the South Park franchise: ‘South Park: The Fractured But Whole’. The more I researched this piece of kit the more hilarious, baffling and exciting it became.

Why is it hilarious?:

Well i’ll spell it out for you. It is a piece of kit developed by Paris agency Buzzman alongside it’s product arm Productman that is designed for one purpose only: to repeatedly smell farts throughout your adventure in South Park as a manic child whose superpower is expunging his nether regions frequently. Awesome I know. Bearable for a whole play-through? Who knows. Regardless, the equipment has been meticulously crafted to give you the most authentic artificial fart smell out there, to the extent where the agency employed a fragrance creation company called Cinquième Sens (the fifth sense) to labour over the ideal chemicals to shoot down your nose. The company themselves knew that their invention was impressive but should be taken with a pinch of salt; the words of Benjamin Sabourin (Productman’s industrial designer) testify to that: “We wanted it to feel like a joke, because it’s South Park, but also wanted to give it a product seriousness, like Oculus.” To see just how it works click the link below:

Buzzman’s Angela Natividad Showcases the Nosulus Rift

Why is it baffling?:

The technology has been paired exclusively with the South Park release and there has been little to no suggestion of it seeing the light of day anywhere else; additionally, it is only usable for brief section as of now, as Angela mentions “The product works only for the duration of a short demo, and won’t be commercialised.” This is a confusing concept given that there is always a market in the gaming community for off-the-wall products like this so limiting it to just expos and event demos seems odd, especially give that there is room for cartridge changes. Maybe the agency just wanted to show the world what they were capable of producing without realising that this could gain some serious traction; they are ,however, likely going to be open to offers if they come rolling in thick and fast soon after the game releases I have no doubt – it would be a bad business move to write it off completely after spending so much time on such a polished product for a fleeting dose of limelight. This brings me onto my next point:

Why is it Exciting?:

When new technology like this is rolled out I can’t help but think of the future possibilities a piece of tech like this could have. This is a product that uses ultrasound to tell the device when and at what strength to release the odour, affectionately named ‘Fart No. 3’, to your nostrils which is pretty clever. I can see the use of this even extending beyond games to help re-introduce smells to people who maybe are not as susceptible to aromas due to various medical conditions. It’s always great to see gaming apparatus used for genuinely important scientific reasons and who knows, the Nosulus could be the next contender alongside traditional VR. On that point, this piece of tech is a telling nod towards what a full fledged VR experience will look like years down the line; I can bet that Facebook’s Oculus are already looking/have looked into the potential of smell sensory devices like this and wouldn’t be surprised if we see some relevant news later down the line.

Here is a link to Angela Natividad’s original article in Adweek.

What do you guys think? Do you think we are going to see more of the Nosulus in the near-future? Should it have even been invented for something like this? Would you have called it ‘Fart No.3’? Discuss away!