Playtech launches virtual tennis product

Online gambling software and games developer Playtech has announced the launch of a new virtual tennis product across all delivery channels through its licensees.

Following a year-long process of exhaustive motion capture initiatives at Warner Bros Studios, and 3D design and modelling work at the Playtech Studios, both in the UK, Playtech Virtual Tennis is as close to the real game as anyone has ever achieved with superior graphics, gameplay and extensive betting opportunities, a company statement claimed Thursday.

Virtual Tennis is available online, in retail, and on mobile and includes comprehensive lifelike action, pre-match betting markets, realistic gameplay and close attention to detail that includes dynamic cloth physics with players’ shirts moving as they stretch to hit a backhand cross-court winner.

All Playtech’s virtual sports products are future proof and developed with tournament, matches and leagues in mind, the statement notes.

Working with Warner Bros. Studios the product began life in the summer of 2015 using the most advanced systems and technology available today. Playtech took over one of Warner Bros. Studios’ largest film stages for three weeks and, installing more than 100 cameras – worth in excess of GBP 5 million and with positional accuracy down to 0.5mm – began to capture the most realistic, accurate and authentic images for next generation Virtual Sports content.

The project is the largest motion capture project ever attempted with Playtech’s Virtual Sports team using professional sportsmen and women in competition conditions and techniques and technology used in films such as Avatar, Godzilla and James Bond’s Quantum of Solace, in order to capture hundreds of hours of movement and footage.

This innovation however is not restricted to graphical development alone. Playtech also concentrated heavily on back-end simulation, ensuring real-life football, tennis and basketball was replicated from a gameplay, user experience and an odds and betting perspective.

Playtech licensees are able to choose from a host of virtual sports including tennis, football, horse-racing, greyhounds, velodrome, and speedway with basketball available later this year.

Elliott Norris, head of Virtual Sports at Playtech, said: “Our Virtual Tennis product is unlike anything the industry has ever seen and feels as if you are courtside watching a Grand Slam.

“The team has done a phenomenal job and we’re delighted and proud of the results.”