Virtual Reality was a concept in which computer-simulated environments simulated in physical presence anywhere. It would revolutionize entertainment across the world.
Background[]
Video games have been around since 1972. So have their consoles. The first console, the Magnavox Odyssey, came out in 1972. This and other early consoles were similar to the Pong arcade console by Atari. The video game crash of 1977 led to the introduction microprocessor-based consoles. The dominant second generation console was the Atari 2600, originally called the Atari VCS. The entire video game industry was built on this console. Because of that, many subpar games were released for the Atari 2600, and this led to the video game crash of 1983. The industry in North America was revitalized by the Nintendo Entertainment System from Japan. During the third generation that this console started, scrolling graphics replaced flip-screen graphics, and Japan came to dominate the videogame industry. The fourth generation was marked by the competition between two Japanese consoles. They were the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and the Sega Mega Drive, a.k.a. Sega Genesis. Both used 16-bit processors. Sega's console was claimed to be better than Nintendo's. Ultimately, it was the Super Nintendo Entertainment System that won. The fifth generation was dominated by three consoles. Two of them, the Sega Saturn and the Sony PlayStation, had 32-bit processors. The other, the Nintendo 64, was named for the fact that it had 64-bit processors. Among the three consoles, the one on top was the Sony PlayStation. At the same time, computers started to emulate earlier video game consoles with help from the Internet. In the sixth generation, there were four consoles, known as the Sega Dreamcast, the Sony PlayStation 2, the Nintendo Game Cube, and the Microsoft Xbox. The Sony PlayStation 2 was the dominant console this time just like its predecessor. The seventh generation had three consoles: the Microsoft Xbox 360, the Sony PlayStation 3, and the Nintendo Wii. The Sony PlayStation 3 and the Nintendo Wii shared dominance at this time. The Wii was helped by new motion sensor technology in its remote. The eighth generation was dominated by the Nintendo Wii U which had an early start over the Sony PlayStation 4 and the Microsoft Xbox 720. The Nintendo Wii U had a controller that allowed for handheld videogames to be played on the same console. Eventually, this would drive handheld consoles, such as Nintendo's own Game Boy and DS lines into obsolesence. The ninth generation saw the incorporation of virtual reality into video games. This eventually made video games the dominant form of entertainment.
Description[]
Tech Level: 10-11
Virtual Reality was not a new concept by the time ninth generation consoles. But this was time virtual reality became commonplace. As video game consoles already incorporated haptic technology, virtual reality benefited. This made virtual reality more immersive. People were using virtual reality to connect. With virtual reality combined with downloading video games from the Internet, people could play video games with someone they did not know at first. Tenth generation consoles went even farther by incorporating virtual retinal displays which took the video game out of the television and into the lens. Implantable brain-computer interfaces would lead to full immersion virtual reality and render consoles obsolete. It was then that virtual reality video games became the dominant form of entertainment.