VR in the 90s: The failed VR goggles from Nintendo, Atari, Sega & Hasbro
In the 1990s, Nintendo, Sega, Atari and Hasbro wanted to bring virtual reality into the living room – and all failed due to technology, costs and expectations.
(Image: Atari)
In the decade following the video game crash of the 1980s, several big names in the entertainment industry wanted to penetrate the consumer market with virtual reality. Nintendo, Sega, Atari, and Hasbro developed elaborately designed VR goggles for games consoles, but none of these projects made it beyond the status of prototypes or short-lived market appearances.
Nintendo's Virtual Boy: ambition meets technical limits
Nintendo began researching stereoscopic 3D technologies with great enthusiasm in the early 1990s. Under the leadership of Gunpei Yokoi, who played a key role in the development of the Game Boy, the company began developing a VR system in 1991. The underlying technology came from the US company Reflection Technology and was based on an LED line display, the “Scanned Linear Array”. Instead of a classic display, a vertical LED strip (“linear array”) with 224 red LEDs was used for each eye. Each LED array formed a single column of pixels and a rapidly reciprocating mirror, driven by a voice coil motor, reflected the light across the width of the field of view.
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This created the impression of a complete 384 × 224 pixel image for each eye. The mirrors vibrated at around 50 Hz, i.e., 50 image repetitions per second. As efficient blue or green LEDs were not technically or economically available in the 1990s, all images displayed appeared monochromatic in red – the well-known trademark of the Virtual Boy. In 1995, Nintendo finally launched its new console on the market with some completely absurd and misleading commercials. Despite its stereoscopic display, the device was far from being VR glasses.
Instead of the originally planned headset form factor, Nintendo decided to release the Virtual Boy as a stationary device with a stand and eyepiece due to health and safety concerns. Nintendo invested heavily, issuing developer kits early on and setting up its production lines. But it was not a success. The device was uncomfortable, the display tired the eyes and often caused headaches. The selection of games was also sparse, with only 22 titles. After disappointing sales figures of just 770,000 units sold worldwide, Nintendo discontinued the device in 1996 and focused on the N64. Yokoi left the company shortly afterwards.
Sega VR: too realistic for market maturity
Nintendo's biggest competitor also made efforts to bring VR to the home console market from 1991. In the USA, Sega developed a headset for the Mega Drive under the direction of Stewart Kosoy. The technology was advanced for the time: integrated headphones with stereo sound, head movement tracking and two LCD displays. However, these provided a similar monochromatic image to the Virtual Boy. The project was supported by companies such as Ono-Sendai, IDEO and Durand Interstellar. However, planned games such as “Nuclear Rush” or “Iron Hammer” never reached the market.
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Sega stopped development in 1994. However, the official justification that the system was “too realistic” to be brought to market without hesitation was only intended to distract from the actual problems. There were massive complaints about dizziness and nausea, especially among children, and a critical report by the Stanford Research Institute even classified the VR goggles as a health risk. With the low computing power of the Sega consoles at the time, the VR goggles only achieved a very low resolution of 320 × 240 pixels and a weak frame rate of 30 Hz maximum.
Sega's arcade VR projects in Japanese theme parks, on the other hand, were more successful. The “Mega Visor Display,” which was used in the VR-1 amusement park attraction, was created in collaboration with Virtuality. Without the technical limitations of home consoles, Sega was able to offer high-quality VR experiences with 3D graphics, motion simulators, and multiplayer functions for the first time. The systems were based on Sega Model 1 chips and offered immersive games. Although they were technically more sophisticated, they were expensive and limited to theme parks in Japan and the USA. Attempts to develop VR goggles for the next domestic Saturn console ended at the early prototype stage.
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Atari Jaguar VR: the nail in the coffin for virtuality
After Atari had produced two of the most important VR researchers ever in the 1980s, the company tried its hand at VR systems itself in the 1990s. The successful British VR arcade manufacturer Virtuality was to provide support. The collaboration resulted in a version of Virtuality's “Visette” VR goggles optimized for home use, which had originally been developed for arcades. The “Jaguar V” project was intended to add a VR headset to the 64-bit Atari Jaguar console and was presented at CES in 1995.
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It included two color LC displays that delivered either red-grey or blue-grey images depending on the prototype, integrated headphones, infrared tracking and a separate VR controller – the “Space Joystick”. Games such as “Missile Command 3D” and “Zone Hunter” were already in development, but even the Jaguar was technically too weak for virtual reality.
The low computing power led to jerky images and frequent tracking errors, which resulted in severe motion sickness for users. In addition, there was negative feedback at trade fairs and internal economic problems. The Jaguar console sold poorly, and after Atari's merger with JT Storage, all investments in games consoles were discontinued. Virtuality suffered huge financial losses as a result of the failure, from which the company never recovered.
Hasbro's never-released VR toaster
In addition to the major console manufacturers, toy giant Hasbro was also working on an ambitious VR project. Under changing codenames such as “Sliced Bread,” “Toaster,” “Rush,” or “Xscape VR,” the company wanted to establish a low-cost home VR system and sought out several experts for the project. The initiator was Chris Gentile from AGE Inc. who had already played a key role in the development of Mattel's NES accessory “PowerGlove”. He was supported in the headset design by Steve E. Tice from QWC and the David Sarnoff Research Center, which developed its own VR lens system for projection onto both eyes.
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Hasbro's VR system was to be powered by an optimized ARM core processor from Argonaut Games, the developers of Nintendo's Super FX chip. Hasbro launched its first press campaigns in 1994. At least five launch titles were planned, including the games “Nero Zero,” “Intruder” and various VR racing games. Despite numerous demos and hardware plans, the project also failed due to technical hurdles, rising costs, and a difficult market situation, which was not made any easier by the imminent release of Sony's Playstation.
The original target sales price of 200 US dollars rose to as much as 499 US dollars during development. In 1996, Hasbro finally discontinued the project as it saw little chance of a satisfactory VR presentation and a successful market launch. Hasbro is said to have invested between 40 and 60 million US dollars in the system. A finished product was never created.
A joint failure with long-term consequences
All four companies failed due to similar problems: inadequate technology, health concerns, a lack of content and high costs. Nintendo at least brought a market-ready product to market, while Sega, Atari, and Hasbro only burned a lot of money with their home VR systems and never made it past the prototype stage.
Nevertheless, the failed projects of the 1990s are now regarded as early pioneers for later developments in 3D and VR technology. Many of the engineers and companies involved, including Reflection Technology, the Sarnoff Center, and Virtuality, provided impetus for later systems. However, at the time, the technology was not mature enough to survive on the mass market. The euphoria quickly gave way to disillusionment, and the term virtual reality disappeared from living rooms for many years – until a resourceful inventor built the first prototype of VR glasses in his garage in 2009, which would later cause a stir as the “Oculus Rift.”
(joe)
