User:Virtualerian/Virtual Reality in Gaming

Future Vision Technologies
Future Vision Technologies (FVT), operating from 1991 to 1995, was part of the second wave of companies working to commercialize virtual reality technology. The company produced a number of products which appear to be first of their kind in the market:


 * Stuntmaster Head Mounted Display (HMD) - Stuntmaster was the first consumer head mounted display to ship in the market The low-resolution, monocular device shipped with a patented mechanical head tracker which had fast response times and accurate positioning. The product itself was marketed and sold under license by VictorMaxx.


 * Sapphire IME with Pixel Bus - Sapphire IME integrated 3D graphics card with graphics and audio output. A major innovation, demonstrated at AES 94 in Washington, DC and at Siggraph 94 in Orlando, FL, USA, was the ability to chain multiple cards together across multiple Pentium-class personal computers to create a single simulation environment known as a VR CAVE. The Siggraph 94 demonstration consisted of three Sapphire IME cards installed in three Pentium (90 MHz) computers driving three sychronized Barco projectors. Each screen was running frame-interlaced stereo, allowing users wearing LCD shutter glasses to be fully immersed in the scene. Until this demonstration, VR CAVE implementations had only been implemented using high-end graphics workstations from companies like Silicon Graphics.


 * InterFACE Portable Virtual Environment Generator

Sega VR
The Sega VR was a virtual reality headset under development by Sega. The Sega VR was based on an IDEO virtual reality headset (HMD) with LCD screens in the visor and stereo headphones. Inertial sensors in the headset allowed the system to track and react to the movements of the user's head.

Virtual Boy
The Virtual Boy (バーチャルボーイ) was a table-top video game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was the first video game console that was supposed to be capable of displaying "true 3D graphics" out of the box, in a form of virtual reality. Whereas most video games use monocular cues to achieve the illusion of three dimensions on a two-dimensional screen, The Virtual Boy creates an illusion of depth through the effect known as parallax. In a manner similar to using a head-mounted display, the user looks into an eyepiece made of neoprene on the front of the machine, and then an eyeglass-style projector allows viewing of the monochromatic (in this case, red) image.

Virtuality
Virtuality is a line of virtual reality gaming machines produced by Virtuality Group, and found in video arcades in the early 1990s. The machines deliver real time (less than 50ms lag) gaming via a stereoscopic visor, joysticks, and networked units for multi-player gaming.

Initially introduced in 1991, the systems were developed for industry, where the first two networked systems were sold to British Telecom Research Laboratories to experiment with networked telepresence applications. Many other systems were sold to corporations including Ford, IBM, Mitsubishi and Olin. Professional virtual reality systems included the launch of the Ford Galaxy in virtual reality and a virtual trading floor for the London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange (LIFFE). However, the users' thrill of talking and mutually interacting with each other as virtual characters refocused the company's direction.

There are two types of units (referred to by the company as "pods"): One where the player stands up (SU), and the other where they sit down (SD). Both unit types utilize head-mounted displays (the "Visette") which each contain two LCD screens at resolutions of 276x372 each. Four speakers and a microphone were also built into the unit. The SU units have a Polhemus 'Fast Track' magnetic source built into the waist high ring with a receiver in a free-moving joystick (the "Space Joystick"), while the SD design has the player sitting down with joysticks, a steering wheel, or aircraft yoke for control, depending on the game. The SD system was developed and launched in 1993 at Wembley Stadium in London.

Using the magnetic tracking system the stereoscopic display was able to react to head movements to change the display based on what the player would be "looking at" within the gaming environment. The position of the joystick (also magnetically tracked) controls movement of the player's "virtual hand", and a button on the joystick moves the player forwards in the game arena.

VirtuSphere
VirtuSphere is a virtual reality device. It is, as the name suggests, spherical. It consists of a 10-foot hollow sphere, which is placed on a special platform that allows the sphere to rotate freely in any direction according to the user’s steps. It works with computer based simulations and virtual worlds, and rotates as the user walks, allowing for an unlimited plane upon which the user can walk. A wireless head-mounted display with gyroscopes is used to both track the user's head movement as well as display the environment of the virtual world. VirtuSphere can serve many purposes, including exercise, video gaming, military training, and virtual museum tours.

Nintendo On
Nintendo ON was a fake video game console. The console was introduced in a 6 minute and 21 second video

released on the Internet in 2005, shortly before E3. The video was created by Pablo Belmonte from Spain, who goes by the screen name "psyco3ler." Belmonte posted it on message boards claiming to have found a leaked trailer of Nintendo's next console, at that time code-named Revolution. The video was very convincing to most, and it is now considered to be one of the greatest hoaxes in video game history.

3rd Space Vest
The ForceWear Vest is a wearable impact production video game accessory that was unveiled at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco in March 2007. The vest was mentioned in several articles about next-generation gaming accessories. The vest was released in November 2007, and reviews of the product have been generally favorable.

The vest uses eight trademarked "contact points" that simulate gunfire, body slams or G-forces associated with race car driving. It is unique because unlike traditional force feedback accessories, the vest is directional, so that action taking place outside the players' field of view can also be felt. A player hit by gunfire from behind will actually feel the shot in his back while he may not be otherwise aware of this using standard visual display cues.

Oculus Rift
The Oculus Rift is an upcoming high field of view (FOV), low-latency, consumer-priced virtual reality (VR) head-mounted display (HMD). It is being developed by Oculus VR, who have raised $2.4 million from a Kickstarter campaign.