12.6

//Source(s): Ownership, retail market observations.// Bruce, Here are a couple "fresh kills" that I thought you might enjoy. Dying Medium: Nintendo Virtual Boy 1995- In the halcyon rush to capitalize on the pop cultural fad of virtual reality, Nintendo produced what amounts to a cross between a Super NES and a head-mounted display. The gaming device is two to three times the size of other commercial head mounted display devices. Furthermore, due to its bulkiness and weight, the Virtual Boy sits perched atop a table stand. This causes the player to sit hunched over the device, reminding me of the old Edison Kinetoscopes. The Virtual Boy rests comfortably atop the face if it's used in a reclining position, with the stand resting on the viewer's chest. The display itself is a monochrome red of fairly high resolution (well above 320x200), and offers personal adjustments for optical parallax and focus. The control has six buttons and two "joypads", much like those offered on the Sony PlayStation. In July 1996, there were only about 20 games extant for this platform. According to discussions with various local and regional retailers, the Virtual Boy sales were lackluster, and were not up to Nintendo's expectations. I would speculate that the Virtual Boy's market failure was due to its monochrome display, its cumbersome ergonomics, and the fact that no one else can watch the user play. The competitive spirit is a big part of the enjoyment of gaming. Currently, the Virtual Boy is still on the shelves, retailing for around $95. The used apparatus are commonly available for around $40, with gamesselling for about $25. One ironic point of note: as I sifted through the Virtual Boy titles on the shelves, the title displayed most prominently was "Water World." **Dead medium:** Logitech CyberMan (3D Mouse) //Source(s): Owners' manual, personal experience.// Another entry in the race to capitalize in the VR craze of the mid-nineties was the Logitech CyberMan mouse. A three-buttoned horn-like appendage connected to an ovoid base, the Cyberman was a masterpiece of design aesthetics. The user could push, pull, turn, and twist the mouse-like control horn to control movement and rotation in three axes, with six degrees of freedom. Furthermore, the Cyberman featured tactile feedback in the form of vibration through the "mouse." To sense its location, the device read its position through pressure-sensitive resistive films. These materials also allowed the CyberMan to sense the degree of twist in the control horn, enabling it to control the rate of spin during game play. The tactile feedback was created by a motor with an offset weight, which vibrated with an often startling thrumming noise. In operation, the CyberMan was extremely inaccurate. Its location method was imprecise, and its plastic construction was flimsy. It was difficult to operate in graphical user environments, such as Microsoft Windows. However, the CyberMan was supported by game manufacturers, such as ID and Apogee. In games such as Descent, the Cyberman performed wonderfully. It's still my personal favorite I/O device for 3D games, along with the Virtual I/O glasses' head tracker. The CyberMan was discontinued by most national retailers in mid-1995, and hasn't been heard of since. Would the Nintendo Power Glove be considered 'dead' even though it has a vital cult following? I would argue it is, due to its death as a mainstream gaming i/o device. Ever your loyal necronaut, Pat Lichty (plichty@eznets.canton.oh.us)
 * Dead medium: the Nintendo Virtual Boy, the Logitech Cyberman 3D mouse, the Nintendo Power Glove**
 * From: plichty@eznets.canton.oh.us (Pat Lichty)**