The Untold Story Of Virtual Reality On The Sega Genesis – The Unreleased The Sega VR Headset

25 Comments

1. As a VR developer, it's great to hear your research of what was. I didn't know about this story as a child when even I was on the VR Hype Train(tm), but I think it was for the best that Sega canceled the product due to headaches and eyestrain, or what we call "comfort" in the industry today.

   With PC and Console processing power being thousands of times faster than what was available on the Sega Genesis, screens being ~50x higher pixel count, and components being miniaturized significantly each year, and wireless technology to drive these high bandwidth, low latency applications, VR is finally positioned to take off not as a replacement for current video games, but as a brand new medium to play games, and tell stories in. Comfort issues are completely mitigated as long as the developer doesn't constantly break best practice rules, and the tools for creating immersive 3d environments are FREE now.

   While it's fun to look at the past, I think the future is going to bring a lot of innovation that we haven't even dreamt up yet and that's what excites me to be a VR Developer TODAY.

2. I've used those in a theme park. You couldn't use them for a long time : motion sickness and headache.

3. A major problem with VR remains punched walls and broken controllers.

4. Sega: Always ahead of its time, always behind the competition

5. I think you made a good conclusion. Even if Sega did release Sega VR, it would have gotten lost among all the peripherals, whether it was good or bad

6. While it was canceled for consoles, a more advanced and expensive version of the Sega VR did release in arcades during the mid-90s. I played it myself at a SegaWorld arcade in the mid-90s. The game I played was a shooter with 3D polygon graphics.

   It was a really cool experience at the time. I remember being blown away by the head-tracking, without realizing what head-tracking even was, making it feel like being immersed inside a virtual world. And I never experienced any motion sickness while playing for a couple of minutes. By the time Oculus revived VR in the 2010s, it felt like childhood nostalgia to me, rather than something new.

7. so this is why sega just had the ap for PSVR some time later lol

8. this was kept quiet cause ive never heard of it i wont say my age but my first console was Atari 2600:D

9. Not that it helped Sega in the long run but it was good that they shelved this system, at best it probably would have been as successful as the VirtualBoy (and thats not saying much). And the public backlash would have been insane, as ambitious and forward thinking as this was, the technology just wasn't there.

10. its been 25 years and vr is still not a viable option/psvr 350/rift 400 and vive 800

11. Nintendo didn't care about kids getting sick or headaches. I had a Virtual Boy and I'm still amazed they released that. It felt like your eyes were on fire after thirty minutes of playtime.

12. What a well-produced video! You’ve got a great channel going on and it’s now one of my favorites.

13. This was ahead of it's time! It suck's that Sega is no longer around! I loved Sega! I hate that they put Sonic on the Playstation and Xbox now it doesn't look right and I'll never play them game's on anything other than a Sega console!

14. Brilliant

15. I mean genesis vr is cool EXCEPT for the fact that nobody wants to leave real life graphics for genesis graphics lmfao

16. This device shows everything that was great about Sega and why they failed.

17. If Sega would have been the one to release Virtual Boy we may have never gotten the Dreamcast.

18. I had no idea Sega VR or the Sega activator existed. Great video. I have been binge-watching your videos the past two days. Keep it up.

19. and for the game gear it should be called the sega virtual gear competitor to the virtual boy

20. Why does that picture of the person wearing the VR helmet look like the character in the picture of PUBG that's wearing the white shirt, red tie and welding mask which looks like the VR helmet?

21. wow dude. your channel is blowin up with views on this.

22. SEGA and Nintendo were ahead of its time. Sucks they never sold that well. ( SEGA ) ( SEGA was the first to created CD's )

23. I didn't even know about this. I guess considering it never came out there's good reason for it. But I was in the target market for video games at this time and do remember Sega Genesis trying to stay afloat against the titan of Super Nintendo. It seemed like VR was the way to go but it was not to be. I remember VR being touted as the next best thing. But it never really took off. This video and your good research explain why. Too expensive and not really a good enough experience in a cost effective one on a slower processor.

24. I am lucky to have had the chance to experience VR, which has been a longtime childhoos dream od mine. I enjoyed watching this and knowing the historical background of this wondeful technology; thanks for sharing this video with us!

25. I didn't want to watch your videos because I was like okay another video game historian knock off. Mind you I don't know if you came before him or he before you but I got to be honest you're jacked and look cool so I didn't want to listen to you. And God damn it I'm glad I clicked this video you just got a new subscriber