Virtual reality is no longer a dream. HTC Vive, Oculus Quest and other PlayStation VR have fulfilled the promise made for years by many fiction writers and high-tech companies. In the 90s, several leading brands tried their hand at virtual reality on consoles without ever succeeding in making the test a reality. And an extremely rare vestige of one of these tests has just resurfaced.
The only working copy of the Atari Jaguar’s virtual reality headset has just appeared in a video posted on Twitter . The latter was filmed and shared by a certain “Chronos_B.” And it has enough to make collectors as well as Atari fans and historians drool.
As shown in the video and photos below, this Atari Jaguar headset works with a special VR version of the Missile Command 3D game. An imposing sensor also serves as a relay between the virtual reality headset and the console.
A virtual reality so 90s
According to the author of this video, only two Atari Jaguar virtual reality headsets are currently in the wild. The first is red, not working, and belongs to a British museum. The second, visible in the video above, is therefore blue and works. It belongs to Italian collector Marco Pasquali.
In the mid-1990s, Atari and a British company called Virtuality worked on a virtual reality headset for the Jaguar. A prototype of the latter had also been presented at the first E3 in 1995. But as fans of the history of video games know, this product has never been released on the market.
An overambitious project for the Atari Jaguar?
The financial difficulties encountered at the time by Atari did not provide an optimal creative framework for this project. Its exorbitant price as well as the limitations of the technology of the time certainly ended up getting the better of it. It is in any case surprising to see that an Atari Jaguar virtual reality headset is now in the hands of an individual.
Anyway, for whom is interested at least in the preservation of the video game heritage, the existence of a copy in working order is excellent news. It now remains to be hoped that other information about this helmet and its game will soon be released.
Are you surprised to learn that a functional Atari Jaguar virtual reality headset still exists? Do you remember the existence of such a project? Would you like to be able to try it? Tell us all in the comments below.
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