About: The R-Zone is a portable game console (originally head-worn, later handheld) developed and manufactured by Tiger Electronics. The R-Zone was shown at the American International Toy Fair in February 1995 and was released later that year. The R-Zone was largely unsuccessful and would only be manufactured for a short period, before being discontinued in 1997. Although the R-Zone was not designed to compete directly with any other handhelds, it marked Tiger Electronics’ first multi-game entry into the portable electronic game market.
Tiger R-Zone Specs and Info…
Device: Tiger R-Zone
Manufacturer: Tiger Electronics
Announced Date: Unknown
Release Date: November 1995
Launch Price: $30 (£22)
Device Type: Other
Display: Transparent LCD display
Diagonal Field of View(FOV): 20°
Refresh Rate: N/A
Weight: Unknown
CPU: N/A
GPU: N/A
Battery: N/A
Tracking: N/A
Controllers: R-Zone Attached Controller
Our Thoughts: When you think of Tiger games most of us will instantly think of the LCD games they used to make, but the Tiger R-Zone is not one of those its a head mounted console! Just strap the R-Zone strap around your head, adjust the HMD to your eye and start playing games while on the move!
The cartridge games themselves slotted into the headset and the wire attached controller powered the whole thing. It was as basic as games get and was nothing more than a head mounted LCD game. It’s well worth watching the video below just to see the advert they made for it because quite frankly it was a total con. While it is a unique console and nothing will take that away from it, it is also an epic fail in how to make a head mounted display. It’s a lesson we are sure many virtual reality headsets will be learning in the years to come.
Sources used…
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-Zone