Lengthy earlier than the PlayStation VR and Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional, Sony labored on a digital actuality prototype known as the Sony VRVJ, which stood for Digital Actuality Video Journalist. That’s in line with a put up on X (previously Twitter) from Out of date Sony.
Little or no data is offered on-line about this curious creation, besides that it was developed within the Nineties and was an “all-in-one digital recording suite” supposed to be used by journalists.
As you’ll be able to see from the product imagery, it incorporates a headset, digital camera and microphone. The identical supply refers back to the headset as a Glasstron, which was a line of VR-style headsets developed by Sony. The primary Glasstron headset was launched in 1996, which means that the VRVJ was developed across the identical interval.
What turned me onto this forgotten gadget was an Instagram put up from @the.neon.wolf (above). Regardless of the Out of date Sony Tweet courting again to February 2024 and there being actually no different photographs I can discover on the web, it will seem a collection of very small life-style product photographs has been unearthed.
They present an individual utilizing and carrying the Sony prototype, in addition to what appears to be like like a mock-up of a police crime scene, with the digital camera positioned on what appears to be a specialist tripod – maybe indicating that equipment might need been conceived, too.
Your complete ensemble appears to be like very Eighties / Nineties sci-fi, when you ask me. I can think about a journalist carrying the headset, holding the shoulder-mounted digital camera in a single hand and the microphone within the different. It’s all a bit RoboCop.
In the end, I can solely assume that Sony determined in opposition to the thought. Digital actuality has at all times been a tough promote; the Glasstron collection itself solely lasted just a few years, with the ultimate launch being in 1998.
One thing else I couldn’t assist however discover is that the VRVJ product imagery’s two-tone gray coloring and vivid yellow and crimson buttons look similar to the colour palette used on the unique PlayStation, which was launched in 1994… good to see that some good concepts do not go to waste!
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