About: The Sega VR is a unreleased virtual reality headset developed by Sega in the early 1990s. Planned as a add-on peripheral for the Sega Genesis and only publicly showcased at a number of trade shows and expositions, its release was postponed and later cancelled outright after Sega ran into development issues. At least four in-progress games for the hardware were in development before its cancellation.
The project was largely driven by Sega of America; a more successful, separate, and officially released attempt at a virtual reality headset, the Mega Visor Display, was overseen by Sega’s Japanese amusement divisions and United Kingdom-based collaborators Virtuality, and would be used in the VR-1 theme park ride and the Dennou Senki Net Merc arcade game. The similarly titled VR-1 is not to be confused with the Sega VR.
Sega VR Powered Shades Specs and Info…
Device: Sega VR, (Sega VR Powered Shades)
Manufacturer: Sega Corporation
Announced Date: February 1993
Release Date: Never Released
Launch Price: $200 (£149)
Device Type: VR Headset (Console Powered)
Display: Dual LCD screens (Resolution unknown)
Diagonal Field of View(FOV): 70°
Refresh Rate: 30 Hz
Weight: Unknown
CPU: N/A
GPU: N/A
Battery: N/A
Tracking: 3 DoF Non-positional (Via Gyroscope)
Controllers: Unknown
Our Thoughts: I’m sure the R&D department of Sega felt they couldn’t get anything right, with several console failures (as well as the SegaScope 3D Glasses being an epic flop). But that didn’t seem to stop them from trying again and that is where these Sega VR Powered Shades come into it. Once again it was little more than a pair of 3D glasses, only this time with a screen built into the headset.
This VR headset ran on a Sega 32X so you know already that it wouldn’t have looked great. But believe it or not, the reason Sega decided to can this headset was (and I quote their own PR words) “Our device is simply too realistic and it could lead to people hurting themselves when we as a company don’t want to be responsible for.” And if you believe that you will also believe Shenmue was a flop just like they said. Having said that looking at the video it does look like a pretty good headset, so maybe the joke is on all of us.
Sources used…
- https://segaretro.org/Sega_VR