Talk:Sega VR

To do

• Add info from: interviews, promotional material, videos.

Blurb

“	For the first time, players will be immersed in a 3-D game universe at home! Sega VR will surround the senses in 360 degrees of pure game experience. Imagine the game happening all around you, filling your eyes and ears. Since the beginning of gaming, players have wanted to submerge themselves in the most incredible color graphics and explosive sounds ever seen or heard on Sega Genesis! Only on Sega Genesis! Virtual Reality is possible through specially developed, futuristic Sega technology. Head-mounted display (HMD) delivers it straight to your eyes and ears. Head-tracking system delivers a complete 360° game world and in-your-face 1st person perspective! Special display system feeds the eyes with stereoscopic views and incredible color graphics! Stereo headphones send a rush of incredible stereo sounds to your ears! No need for a TV! Sega VR operates directly with the Genesis system. Intuitive control interface enhances the player's immersion in virtual reality.	„
— 1993 Sega of America trade catalog

Interview

interesting comments from Régis Monterrin (author of this book) here - apparently Shinobu Toyoda said Sega VR cost SOA $6mil, was cancelled because they didn't think the public were ready, when Hayao Nakayama realised this he got very angry (as was his wont), etc

• https://twitter.com/Manga56/status/1533066439409778691

Ted618 (talk) 12:05, 1 November 2022 (GMT)

Did SoJ/Nakayama issue a VR mandate?

HMM Hm Hm... left field thought but. what if SoJ/Nakayama stood up and clapped “It’s VR time!” and issued a directive to both SoJ & SoA to start looking into VR stuff. SoJ ended up with the MVD, and SoA ended up with the unreleased Sega VR? Would explain why both companies starting doing their own VR development at around the same time. Maybe there were plans to go with whatever system worked the best, but then VR being what it is caused the MVD’s planned implimentation to get significantly scaled back? I don’t know, just thoughts. CartridgeCulture (talk) 21:03, 27 April 2021 (EDT)

from what i can tell, the Sega VR project headed by SoA was likely much further into development than whatever SoJ's initial efforts were in 1993, which may have not even existed/were otherwise kept tightly under wraps. SoA's got publicity as early as 93, the MVD first went public in early 94 AFAIK, and nothing is known about what SoJ were doing before Virtuality came along

have this pointer: while looking through old 1993 issues of Game Machine, i noticed a story ran in one issue about SoJ and Virtuality reaching their first agreement to collaborate, at that time apparently only on the Net Merc thing - it had a notable pic attached of Nakayama w/ one of the Virtuality guys. also mentioned something along the lines about how it was not yet decided whether the game would use Sega's headset or one of Virtuality's, so who knows if they meant SoA's SVR or some early SoJ design that we don't know about yet

so basically, my current timeline is this

1992 - initial Sega VR development w/ IDEO almost certainly started here at SoA, SoJ may have been doing early stuff

1993 - SoA goes public with their attempt, SoJ keep quiet about theirs (if it ever existed in the first place) but reach agreements ::with Virtuality to create Net Merc, which soon evolve into the creation of VR-1 and the MVD alongside it

1994 - MVD revealed, VR-1 released at Joypolis, Sega VR already dead in the water

1995 - Net Merc cancelled, as well as the MVD version of Virtual-On if the rumours are true, all serious VR activity probably over at Sega by end of year

i suspect/hope there's more on this matter that can be found in Game Machine that i just haven't caught up to yet, there's so many blanks that need to be filled in here lol

(and it wouldn't surprise me if nakayama was the one who threw down a diktat for VR, but without any quotes implying or confirming so i'm afraid it's pure conjecture)

Ted618 (talk) 00:14, 30 April 2021 (GMT)

Thank you for all this, this is super useful and I appreciate you going out of your way to outline it like this. I agree, so many blanks. In regard to Sega VR, in particular I wish we knew more of the project’s staff. CartridgeCulture (talk) 03:24, 2 May 2021 (EDT)