MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

When the news broke on 25 March 2014 that Facebook was buying Oculus VR, the company behind the Oculus Rift 3D virtual reality headset, many people outside of the gaming community took notice of the $2 billion acquisition, catapulting the idea of wearable VR gear from the fringes of science fiction into the common lexicon. Along with the idea of augmented reality advocated by Google Glass and similar products, the idea of getting these devices into the hands of average consumers tantalizes that consumer base. But how close are these industries to delivering on their claims? Looking at the history of VR devices in video games will help us understand that this has been a long-standing goal on a road replete with many missteps, false starts, and a few products that had potential but were limited by certain circumstances of their creation.

This presentation will consider a number of products, beginning with early attempts to augment a player’s visual experience in arcade cabinets such as Battlezone (1980) and Discs of TRON (1983) and then moving to home consoles and associated peripherals like the 3D Imager for the Vectrex (1982) and the SegaScope 3D glasses for the Sega Master System (1985). Additional devices will be discussed, such as the prototype VR headset for the Atari Jaguar (1994) console and Nintendo’s ill-fated Virtual Boy (1995).

This presentation looks at a wide range of inventions in the realm of virtual reality, what they were attempting to do both technically and aesthetically, and ultimately why they did not succeed (even those with useful ideas). Understanding the legacy of these devices might help us to better understand the potential for the Oculus Rift and other contemporary VR systems (such as Sony’s Project Morpheus) to succeed as well as to fail.