From: lybrand@vnet.IBM.COM (David Lybrand) Subject: INDUSTRY: VR product review from the Consumer Electronics Show Date: Tue, 8 Jun 93 17:00:31 EDT Organization: Human Centric Solutions, IBM Boca Raton I'm posting this report by Jim McLean, with his permission... -- DPL (lybrand@vnet.ibm.com) ------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: VR product review from the Consumer Electronics Show I thought this group might like a quick summary of products touted to be Virtual Reality at last week's Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago. I located three products which explicitly claimed to be "Virtual Reality" and several others that are also interesting from a VR perspective. As the name of the show implies, this isn't the place to see bleeding-edge systems, but low-end adaptations for near-future consumer sales. *Anything* claiming to be VR generated long lines at the show; apparently marketers and retailers (as well as the are general technology-interested public) are very hungry for home VR technology. >VictorMaxx First and most ridiculous was something called the VictorMaxx Stuntmaster, which is a headset that plugs into Sega and Nintendo 16-bit systems. Reading the glossy handout while in line, I immediately began to suspect that this would be disappointing. The picture is of a 10-year old wearing this goggle-headset while his brothers look anxiously on. The first line of text reads "VictorMaxx sells as a gift, but kids will also spend their own savings!". Kind of makes me glad I'm not in retailing. The unit is a plastic headset held in place with an adjustable plastic headband system, like the inside of a bike helmet. A thick cable connects the unit to the video, audio, and joystick ports of the game. The unit includes its own control pad to replace the original game equipment. I make it to the front of the line, and the representative fiddles with the unit for a few minutes. He doesn't really seem to be doing anything other than making sure the line stays 4 or 5 deep. He clamps it to my head. It's heavy, at least a pound, and hurts the bridge of my nose. I slowly focus my eyes on a tiny, low-resolution LCD display (I can't tell whether there are two displays or one split optically, but there is no depth perception within the image). A plastic straw is threaded through a small loop at one ear and clipped to my shirt. Poor-quality stereo music emanates from the headset somewhere in the vicinity of my ears. A simple shoot-em up Nintendo game starts up -- the text on the startup screen, as well as the score, is illegible. The up, down, and fire keys on the controller work as usual. Turning my head from side to side is supposed to activate the left and right controls; this seems to work intermittently, but it's impossible to move fast enough to keep up with the game. The loop through which the straw was passed forms a pivot which allows it to sense which way your head is turned. If this catches on, I think I'll become a chiropractor. Thirty seconds later it's thankfully over. The rep pulls the unit off my head, and, having apparently used the time I was under to scan my badge, asks me to consider whether IBM might want to license the technology. Yeah, right, I assure him. >Virtual Vision Much more satisfying was the Virtual Vision Sport, which, aside from the word in the name, doesn't realy claim to be a VR system, although the technology is obviously intended to move in that direction. This is a nice implementation of an elegant idea. A pair of glasses (claimed weight 5 ounces) has a single small color LCD screen and supporting optics. A small mirror is embedded on the inside of the glasses just below one eye. As I wait in line, a rep shows me how to determine if I am "right-eyed" or "left-eyed" (the image only appears in one eye, and two sets of demo glasses are provided). A belt- mounted tuner/battery pack connects to the glasses via a thin wire. I reach the front of the line, and put on the glasses (having waited until the third day of the show to brave this line, I try not to think about the hundreds who have worn this rather intimate item before me; note to VR developers: make the thing disinfectant-proof). Surprise: it works -- there's the NBA conference final floating about 8 feet in front of me. The picture is quite clear, with a ring of blurriness around the bottom edge; but I can see the beads of sweat on Barkley's forehead glisten. While Sir Charles makes his free throws, the rep explains some of the many intended uses for the unit: TV watching at the beach, instant replays at the ballpark, and (most appealing to me) as a replacement for a camcorder viewfinder. The single-eye presentation doesn't seem to bother me, but I notice you can't really watch the image and what's going on around you at the same time. The ads suggest walking the dog and watching Jeopardy; I hope your sidewalks don't have any cracks, and that the dog is well trained. Again, it's not VR, but kind of fun anyway. We have a nice discussion about the difficulties of aligning images in two eyes, and the psychological implications of only seeing things with one eye. He mentions that the initial price point will be around $900. >Sega Saving the best for last, so I think, I direct my tired feet over to the Sega booth late Saturday. (As discussed in notes above, Sega is rumored to have a $200 VR add-on to its Genesis unit ready for Christmas). As I approach, I am shocked: the Sega VR booth, which had huge crowds on Thursday, is now nearly deserted. Coming closer, I see why: a sign has been posted reading "by invitation only". I try to gain the attention of a Sega rep to ask how one obtains an invitation; his eyes, apparently filled with dollar signs, seem to find me and my orange "Manufacturer" badge invisible in the sea of "Buyers", "Distributors", and 18-year old "Software Developers". Besides, I've got to head off to the White Sox game in half an hour. Oh well, I guess I'll have to wait for Christmas like everyone else. >Other VR-related stuff One of the amazing things about this show is the utter dominance of video games. Good Morning America, in a segment on the CES, reports that Nintendo made more money last year than *any* US company, and that 10% of the US-Japan trade deficit is due to sales of Nintendo games. By far, the main players here are Nintendo and Sega; while Nintendo is not showing any VR prototypes it is obvious that many of its games are being designed around a first-person point of view using the "Super FX" polygon-generating chipset, and are going to be effective VR games as soon as the right display unit comes along. Another major focus of the show is interactive CD. At least three competing CD-I formats are shown. At its low end, CD-I is essentially a glorified Sega game system. More complex software moves the systems into the education and training areas. The lines between entertainment, multimedia, and PC systems are almost indistinguishable at this show. A major new player in the CD-I world is the 3DO company, which has licensed *many* hot computer games and several major hardware manufacturers to their system. Again, many of the games appear to be designed to be ported to VR in the future. Several other VR technologies are finding their way into the home-gaming market. One company shows something called the "Thunder Chair", which is a hard plastic chair which vibrates in response to subsonic frequencies created by the game software, and has a very loud full-range speaker system built in. It is shown with an open-cockpit airplane simulator, and claims to be the only true representation of the actual flying experience. I can't imagine anybody wanting to excite their molecules quite that much. Another chair, also designed for use with flying games, swivels freely as the player leans into turns. Pads, joysticks and trackballs of all shapes and sizes are everywhere. I see lots of airplane yokes and guns. Several specialized game input devices are shown, including an octagon-shaped ring designed to control "Street Fighter" type games -- the ring is placed on the floor and the player stands inside. Moving a limb over any side of the polygon is equivalent to pushing a button on the controller. A group of karate kids demonstrates this quite effectively. As I settle in my seat at Comiskey park, I speculate on what the Sega system might be like, and conclude that it wouldn't have to be very good at all to be the best on the consumer market. As I watch the highlights from the last game on the Sony Jumbotron scoreboard screen, I wonder why anyone would want to wear goofy glasses to watch replays. I watch the kids sitting in the next row and wonder if they'll be asking for a VictorMaxx for Christmas. But most of all I'm just glad to be sitting down and watching the real thing. Jim McLean mclean@bcrvm1.vnet.ibm.com