Невыпущенная VR-гарнитура Sega: История разработки и отмены

Video console peripheral

The Sega VR is an unreleased virtual reality headset developed by Sega in the early 1990s. Planned as an 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.

The Sega VR's design was based on an IDEO virtual reality head mounted display containing LCD screens in the visor and stereo headphones. The device used a magnetometer to detect azimuth relative to the Earth's magnetic field and an optical sensor measuring the refraction of light at the boundary of a gas and fluid to detect tilt.

Sega of America, flush with funds from the success of its Mega Drive/Genesis, announced the peripheral in 1991. It was later seen in 1993 at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Chicago, where it was demonstrated by Alan Hunter and appeared close to a finished product. The event stated that the headset was planned to use the Genesis hardware and would be released in late 1993 at with four confirmed launch games and the possibility of a port of arcade game Virtua Racing. Sega later announced release was slated for early 1994, according to Electronic Games. The Sega VR headset was never released to the general public and it vanished from release schedules in 1994. There are conflicting reports as to why the product was cancelled. Sega officially claimed to have terminated the project because the virtual reality effect was "too realistic", so users might move while wearing the headset and injure themselves.

Only four original games are known to have been in development. Nuclear Rush: A simulation in which users pilot a hovercraft in a futuristic war. Iron Hammer: In this helicopter simulation, gamers pilot a flying gunship as in EA's popular Strike series. Matrix Runner: Reported to be a cyberpunk adventure game inspired by Hideo Kojima's Snatcher. Outlaw Racing: A vehicle racing and combat game. Sega also announced a port of Sega AM2's hit 1992 arcade game Virtua Racing as a launch game for the device, though it is not known how far this reached in development. While Sega of America undertook development on the Sega VR, Sega of Japan endeavoured to create their own virtual reality project. Sega entered into an agreement to collaborate with the pioneering Virtuality Group on a VR arcade project in 1993. Following this the two companies entered into negotiations to build a new headset by combining their previous development assets in the field of VR. Net Merc subsequently received much more muted reception, with the game's flat shaded graphics compared unfavourably to the Sega Model 2's textured filtered graphics when showcased.