Author Topic: Nintendo and Emagin? (Read 6076 times)

Chris1 · « **on:** January 04, 2006, 01:16:51 PM »

An intresting read on ign today http://revolution.ign.com/articles/678/678757p1.html that says Nintendo purchased many vr headsets from emagin. Could this be the other features Retro wanted to incorporate into Metroid 3 besides the controller? Its funny to me that Nintendo has finally been linked to emagin, people have been saying this for awihle now, especially that idiot seriousgamer. although this all could mean nothing for us, it is worth mentioning.

kirby_killer_dedede · « **Reply #1 on:** January 04, 2006, 01:24:07 PM »

WOAH

Though Nintendo's usually been absent from these non game specific events, hopefully CES will bring some more Revolution news. That's pretty wild though.

Seems promising...

attackslug · « **Reply #2 on:** January 04, 2006, 01:58:29 PM »

Sounds promising until you see the price of one of these suckers...
Ouch

If nintendo does anything with these, it's likely to be for an arcade unit. I can't wait to swap forehead grease and lice with thousands of others.

kirby_killer_dedede · « **Reply #3 on:** January 04, 2006, 02:05:20 PM »

goooohhhhhhhh...

JonLeung · « **Reply #4 on:** January 04, 2006, 02:08:48 PM »

The only reason why I can remember who eMagin is is because of the Triforce-like logo... >_>

kirby_killer_dedede · « **Reply #5 on:** January 04, 2006, 02:24:37 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: JonLeung
The only reason why I can remember who eMagin is is because of the Triforce-like logo... >_>

CONSPIRACY

Talon · « **Reply #6 on:** January 04, 2006, 02:29:37 PM »

I wouldn't get your hopes up. I believe that this generation will be more foccused on innovative control. Those VR headsets are still far too expensive and from that article I get the impression Nintendo is in the early stages of testing them. IMO VR will probably be an up and comming issue of the generation after Rev PS3 and X1.5.

I also believe to mass market VR it would probably be a better alternative if they could create a console were you don't need to wear glasses or some kind of visor. Maybe using similar concepts the Gorillaz are using with their virtual reality concerts.

kirby_killer_dedede · « **Reply #7 on:** January 04, 2006, 02:34:11 PM »

More like "virtual reality concerts no one goes to because the Gorillaz suck!" am i right?

Ian Sane · « **Reply #8 on:** January 04, 2006, 03:59:25 PM »

It could legitimately be the coolest thing ever but the second Nintendo busted out headsets everyone would scream "Virtual Boy" and the Rev wouldn't last a year. The last thing Nintendo should ever do is associate a new console with one of the most unsuccessful gaming systems ever made.

Chris1 · « **Reply #9 on:** January 04, 2006, 04:49:20 PM »

Maybe they plan to use a cheaped down one, like they did with the power glove, I remember something like it costing $800 to make, but Nintendo made it available for 100 or something.

BiLdItUp1 · « **Reply #10 on:** January 04, 2006, 06:02:43 PM »

I say - keep this underwraps for about five more years and develop it like mad. Imagine what they could do with it!

Guitar Smasher · « **Reply #11 on:** January 04, 2006, 07:02:14 PM »

I can just see people blindly swinging their NRCs at each other.

KDR_11k · « **Reply #12 on:** January 04, 2006, 08:13:37 PM »

Chris1: What does Nintendo have to do with the Power Glove?

Me I don't want headsets. Not only do those isolate you from the world (wasn't it Nintendo who was insisting that gaming should be a social activity?), they often cause headaches and they are nothing but fancy camera controllers.

Kairon · « **Reply #13 on:** January 04, 2006, 08:56:21 PM »

How can we be contemplating this when the headset itself costs 900 bucks to buy?!?!?!

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

BlackNMild2k1 · « **Reply #14 on:** January 04, 2006, 10:38:36 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: Kairon
How can we be contemplating this when the headset itself costs 900 bucks to buy?!?!?!

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

thats if you buy just 1
now think of the discount you get if you order 1-5 million up front
I'm sure the price would drop from $900 --> $150 real quick or even less
I'm just throwing out an example

kirby_killer_dedede · « **Reply #15 on:** January 05, 2006, 02:28:45 AM »

And if Rev specs suck as bad as the PGC staff thinks they do, then the Rev istelf could cost $50 and the whole thing could cost around $250! Genius!

obscureownership · « **Reply #16 on:** January 05, 2006, 07:26:47 AM »

Just because the Nintendo buys a few VR headsets for research purposes doesn't mean Nintendo will ever use VR headsets in games. Companies do pointless research all the time to find new ways of making money, my guess is, they'll play around with these headsets for a few months and come to find that they can't make enough profit on this technology yet.

BlackNMild2k1 · « **Reply #17 on:** January 05, 2006, 07:32:26 AM »

Or they are testing ideas for new arcade games, or *gasp* dare I say it...

Virtual Boy 2 (GameBoy VR)

I think its been long enough that not only has the tech caught up uo the idea, but gamers might have sort of forgotten about the original failure that was VB

Magik · « **Reply #18 on:** January 05, 2006, 08:18:41 AM »

They won't forgot the Virtual Boy if a Visor ever comes out on a Nintendo console. The media and competitors would jump on it so hard to make sure EVERYBODY remembers how much of a failure the Virtual Boy was.

JonLeung · « **Reply #19 on:** January 05, 2006, 08:42:12 AM »

If the Virtual Boy had never been created I wonder if we'd be moving more in that direction now.

Nintendo's failure with it would certainly cause any console maker, not just Nintendo, to have difficulties with marketing such a device. Maybe less so in the PC market, but even so I wonder how many people are hesitant to try any headset because of what they hear about the Virtual Boy whether or not they've actually used one. Even if a new headset was leaps and bounds above the Virtual Boy it's still not an easy thing to sell. And again, the headset creates more isolation to lonely gamer nerds (the stereotypical kind, anyway) and probably freak out non-gamers, 'cause they probably can't look down at whatever control device they're using to see what buttons to press.

I'm pretty sure Sega had a Sega VR thing that never came out. Yet I'm sure I saw it on the back of a cereal box. Technically a product that never came out should be a bigger failure than a product that has been released. I guess if a product hasn't been released much fewer people will know about it or remember it... >_<

Whether the Sega VR would've come before or after the Virtual Boy I don't quite remember. Was it pulled because it wasn't very good but there was no point to even release it because the VB was clearly not selling too well? Or was it better (it probably had more colours) but prohibitively expensive? Or am I just remembering wrong and it was just another Genesis add-on that everyone has been paid big money to disavow?

Ian Sane · « **Reply #20 on:** January 05, 2006, 10:17:37 AM »

"If the Virtual Boy had never been created I wonder if we'd be moving more in that direction now."

I don't think the idea is really all that great to begin with. When the Virtual Boy was released I would have been 13. At the time I immediately rejected it before I even knew that it was red and black or caused eyestrain. I didn't like it because I knew I couldn't watch someone else play it or have anyone watch me play it. When you've got brothers you spend a fair bit of time watching over people play or playing together. Having a system that could only be used by one person at a time did not sound enticing at all.

Virtual reality is a popular g!mmick in movies and such because in fiction it is so advanced. It's like real life. Your thoughts control the character in the game. That sounds cool. But the in-between stage where you're basically just REALLY close to the screen doesn't sound very interesting. No one really wants to just play videogames with goggles on and right now that's what VR is.

We want videogames as is or we want the holodeck but no one is really that interested in the steps between.

animecyberrat · « **Reply #21 on:** January 05, 2006, 05:48:00 PM »

The Sega Virtual Reality Head Set you refer to was planned to go with Sega CD, it ws going to cost around 400 dollars for the Set and would have game sspecificaly made just for it, and also would display Genesis/Sega CD games. Sega sorta lost interest in it when the price couldnt go any lower than 400 (which was going to be sold at a loss if I remeber correctly they wanted to sell it for 500 at first) Atari also had plans to release a VR head set for Jaguar but that never happened due to Ataris lack of direction and basicaly dropping Jag support just after announcing the thing.

I can dig around and see if I still have the articles and make links if youw ant its an interesting subject because Sega had serious plans to use the VR headsets and in fact some of the technology they were using got carried over to thier Virua line of Arcades, Virta Fighter Virtua Cop and Virtua Racing. The headset was announced BEFORE Virtual Boy and before Saturn even, Sega spent a few months building hype for it in Sega Visions magzine and even EGM had articles on it. DAMN I wish I had savced those old mags cuz it would be really cool to read them all these years latter.

I do know that it was around late 1993 that it was originaly planned to be shown off but after teh initial unvailing and price talks and horirble software that was shown Sega basicaly swept it under the carpet hoping noone would ever find out aboutit again. Sad cuz its one of the things that helped push them so close to going out of bussiness.

EDIT: heres a link i found http://www.emulationzone.org/sections/segaforever/index.php?section=4&readfile=heavyequipas93.html

IceCold · « **Reply #22 on:** January 05, 2006, 10:09:13 PM »

Wow, I seem to remember that Sega VR thing vaguely, but I never really knew about it until now..

Thanks for the info!

Ceric · « **Reply #23 on:** January 06, 2006, 11:11:04 AM »

Sega did have a virtual reality system of sorts for the Master System. A friend had one.

As one of the few proud owners of a Virtual Boy I must say that I would without hesitation almost buy eveything single game for that system if it was released vy the virtual console. The games rocked. It was the hardware itself that stank. Most importanly that there was no way to just wear the thing on your head. That would have been nice.

Now Nintendo has actually mentioned in passing that it has been working on the VR stuff since the VB went flop. They still have hope for it and with as much RnD that Nintendo does I'm sure that they have there own VR units they could use. I don't think that is why they bought the head sets.

I personally think the bought them to allow serious hardcore game reviewers to play some of there more "sissy", it's the term I'm going to use, Revolution games without having to worry about peer pressure or anything of the sort. Plus as an added bonus you can fit more Reviewers in a small kiosk that way while they still have optimal sound and screen size for what they want to show.

$900 really isn't that much for a top of the line monitor.

If these actually work well that would be the ideal use. (Like using Headphones at a listening bar instead of speakers.)

jasonditz · « **Reply #24 on:** January 06, 2006, 11:59:07 AM »

I remember being majorly excited when the Sega VR thing was announced... at the time I had an old style genesis (1st gen) with a second gen Sega CD (top loading) and if I'm not mistaken, the 32X was just announced too. At the time, I was convinced that instead of new consoles, I was going to stick with add-ons to the Genesis into the forseeable future. When I heard about the VR helmet, I started putting money away to get one...

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Author Topic: Nintendo and Emagin? (Read 6076 times)