WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.339 Welcome to the deep dive. I want you to picture 00:00:03.339 --> 00:00:06.019 something for me. Okay. Imagine you have just 00:00:06.019 --> 00:00:09.980 purchased a brand new, highly anticipated video 00:00:09.980 --> 00:00:12.539 game console. Best feeling in the world. Right. 00:00:12.619 --> 00:00:14.419 But instead of plugging it into your television 00:00:14.419 --> 00:00:15.960 or, you know, holding it in your hands like a 00:00:15.960 --> 00:00:18.899 normal Game Boy or whatever, you are strapping 00:00:18.899 --> 00:00:21.100 this gaming console directly onto your head. 00:00:21.199 --> 00:00:24.199 Oh, wow. Yeah. You secure this thick, really 00:00:24.199 --> 00:00:27.160 tight elastic band right around your skull. You 00:00:27.160 --> 00:00:29.879 flip down a small translucent plastic lens so 00:00:29.879 --> 00:00:31.800 it sits right in front of your right eye. Just 00:00:31.800 --> 00:00:34.789 the right eye. Just the right eye. you are staring 00:00:34.789 --> 00:00:38.090 at these glowing dark red graphics just floating 00:00:38.090 --> 00:00:40.850 in your field of vision sounds very sci -fi it 00:00:40.850 --> 00:00:43.609 does until you realize that to control the action 00:00:43.609 --> 00:00:46.109 you are tethered to a plastic controller in your 00:00:46.109 --> 00:00:49.350 hands by a thick cable that is exactly two and 00:00:49.350 --> 00:00:51.929 a half feet long oh no that is that's a recipe 00:00:51.929 --> 00:00:54.530 for disaster it really is i mean it sounds like 00:00:54.530 --> 00:00:57.429 a rejected prop from some low budget cyberpunk 00:00:57.429 --> 00:01:00.170 movie yeah but this was a very real very heavily 00:01:00.170 --> 00:01:03.609 marketed consumer product exactly today we are 00:01:03.609 --> 00:01:06.269 taking a deep dive into the Tiger Electronics 00:01:06.269 --> 00:01:10.129 R -Zone. Ah, the R -Zone. Yeah. This was a portable 00:01:10.129 --> 00:01:13.629 game console that lived an incredibly short And 00:01:13.629 --> 00:01:17.950 chaotic life, basically, from 1995 to 1997. Very 00:01:17.950 --> 00:01:19.950 short lifespan. Yeah. And our source material 00:01:19.950 --> 00:01:23.409 today is a really comprehensive Wikipedia article 00:01:23.409 --> 00:01:27.530 that breaks down the games, the truly bizarre 00:01:27.530 --> 00:01:29.930 hardware variations they released over that two 00:01:29.930 --> 00:01:32.629 year period. And of course, the absolutely brutal 00:01:32.629 --> 00:01:35.250 critical reception this device got. And, you 00:01:35.250 --> 00:01:37.689 know, our mission today goes beyond just marveling 00:01:37.689 --> 00:01:40.450 at a failed gadget. Right. We're examining how 00:01:40.450 --> 00:01:44.010 companies attempt to package. Very old, primitive 00:01:44.010 --> 00:01:47.650 technology inside trendy, futuristic form factors. 00:01:47.810 --> 00:01:50.569 Yeah, masquerading as innovation. Exactly. The 00:01:50.569 --> 00:01:53.090 R zone is a master class. And what happens when 00:01:53.090 --> 00:01:55.849 a business prioritizes a visual gimmick over 00:01:55.849 --> 00:01:58.329 actual technological advancement? It teaches 00:01:58.329 --> 00:02:00.310 us a lot about the line between true innovation 00:02:00.310 --> 00:02:02.950 and clever, or in this case, not so clever packaging. 00:02:03.170 --> 00:02:05.069 Okay, let's unpack this. Set the scene for us. 00:02:05.129 --> 00:02:07.030 When did this thing actually hit the market and 00:02:07.030 --> 00:02:09.150 what was the initial pitch to consumers? So the 00:02:09.150 --> 00:02:12.050 year was 1995. The original R -Zone headgear 00:02:12.050 --> 00:02:14.090 model was officially unveiled to the world at 00:02:14.090 --> 00:02:16.469 the American International Toy Fair. And the 00:02:16.469 --> 00:02:19.370 setup was wild. You had this head -mounted unit 00:02:19.370 --> 00:02:21.870 that's strapped around your forehead. The actual 00:02:21.870 --> 00:02:24.669 game cartridge was inserted directly into this 00:02:24.669 --> 00:02:26.930 headset. Way into the headset itself. Right into 00:02:26.930 --> 00:02:29.849 the headset. And inside that cartridge was a 00:02:29.849 --> 00:02:33.409 transparent LCD screen. The R -Zone unit would 00:02:33.409 --> 00:02:35.789 shine a light through the cartridge, projecting 00:02:35.789 --> 00:02:38.930 the LCD screen onto a mirrored surface that you 00:02:38.930 --> 00:02:40.949 positioned right in front of your eye. The visual 00:02:40.949 --> 00:02:43.050 of someone wearing this is just incredible to 00:02:43.050 --> 00:02:45.789 think about. It's very goofy. But why this specific 00:02:45.789 --> 00:02:48.849 design? I mean, why the headset and the glowing 00:02:48.849 --> 00:02:51.110 red graphics? What's fascinating here is the 00:02:51.110 --> 00:02:54.650 timing. And the aesthetic choices. The mid -90s 00:02:54.650 --> 00:02:56.949 saw a massive explosion of interest in virtual 00:02:56.949 --> 00:03:00.370 reality. Oh, yeah, the VR craze. Exactly. And 00:03:00.370 --> 00:03:02.210 Nintendo was generating an enormous amount of 00:03:02.210 --> 00:03:04.270 industry buzz with the Virtual Boy, which was 00:03:04.270 --> 00:03:06.229 hitting the market around the exact same time. 00:03:06.330 --> 00:03:08.590 Right. And the Virtual Boy also featured a headset 00:03:08.590 --> 00:03:11.930 and relied entirely on a stark red and black 00:03:11.930 --> 00:03:14.530 graphic color scheme. That cannot be a coincidence. 00:03:15.069 --> 00:03:16.930 Well, Tiger Electronics never officially concerned 00:03:16.930 --> 00:03:20.169 this theory. But the prevailing thought... among 00:03:20.169 --> 00:03:23.250 gaming historians is that the entire design of 00:03:23.250 --> 00:03:26.289 the R -Zone was a deliberate attempt to ride 00:03:26.289 --> 00:03:29.689 the coattails of Nintendo's marketing. Just skimming 00:03:29.689 --> 00:03:31.789 off the top of that hype. Yeah. Tiger clearly 00:03:31.789 --> 00:03:34.409 wanted a piece of that futuristic mindshare and 00:03:34.409 --> 00:03:38.099 they wanted it fast. But the reality of... what 00:03:38.099 --> 00:03:41.060 the R -Zone actually was. I mean, the contrast 00:03:41.060 --> 00:03:44.099 between the futuristic VR -style headgear and 00:03:44.099 --> 00:03:46.460 what was actually under the hood is just staggering. 00:03:46.740 --> 00:03:49.719 It really is. If I'm a kid in 1995 putting this 00:03:49.719 --> 00:03:52.460 on, what kind of processing power am I actually 00:03:52.460 --> 00:03:54.520 strapping to my brain? Well, under the hood might 00:03:54.520 --> 00:03:56.120 be a very generous phrase here. Dare I know. 00:03:56.400 --> 00:03:58.699 Because from a technical standpoint, the console 00:03:58.699 --> 00:04:01.240 itself had absolutely no microprocessor. None 00:04:01.240 --> 00:04:03.560 at all. None. It had no internal memory whatsoever. 00:04:04.060 --> 00:04:06.240 The head unit you strapped on was essentially 00:04:06.240 --> 00:04:09.379 just a front polarizer for the LCD, a single 00:04:09.379 --> 00:04:11.919 mono speaker, and a shift register to handle 00:04:11.919 --> 00:04:14.139 the controls. That was the entire machine. Wait, 00:04:14.159 --> 00:04:16.500 hold on. A shift register? A front polarizer? 00:04:16.660 --> 00:04:19.000 Yeah. For those of us who aren't electrical engineers, 00:04:19.300 --> 00:04:21.860 what does that actually mean for the player? 00:04:22.720 --> 00:04:25.579 Simply put, the headset itself didn't think. 00:04:26.170 --> 00:04:29.029 It didn't compute graphics or process game logic. 00:04:29.209 --> 00:04:31.670 Okay. The shift register was basically just a 00:04:31.670 --> 00:04:34.350 very simple traffic cop. It routed the electrical 00:04:34.350 --> 00:04:36.470 signals from the buttons you pressed on the controller 00:04:36.470 --> 00:04:39.189 up the wire to the headset. And the polarizer. 00:04:39.230 --> 00:04:41.410 The polarizer was just a filter to make the light 00:04:41.410 --> 00:04:43.949 readable. All of the actual computing components, 00:04:44.149 --> 00:04:46.750 the microcontroller itself, all of that. was 00:04:46.750 --> 00:04:49.329 stuffed entirely inside each individual game 00:04:49.329 --> 00:04:51.509 cartridge. So the console was literally just 00:04:51.509 --> 00:04:53.750 a flashlight and a mirror attached to a headband. 00:04:53.910 --> 00:04:55.990 That is a remarkably accurate way to describe 00:04:55.990 --> 00:04:58.629 it, honestly. Wow. The transparent center of 00:04:58.629 --> 00:05:01.370 the game cartridge allowed the internal light 00:05:01.370 --> 00:05:04.410 to pass through, and the console just reflected 00:05:04.410 --> 00:05:06.889 that light off the specialized mirror to the 00:05:06.889 --> 00:05:09.160 player's eye. Let's talk about those graphics 00:05:09.160 --> 00:05:11.500 because the term video game feels like a bit 00:05:11.500 --> 00:05:13.620 of a stretch here. A huge stretch. To really 00:05:13.620 --> 00:05:16.079 help you visualize what this looked like in practice, 00:05:16.379 --> 00:05:20.300 imagine a standard digital alarm clock. You know 00:05:20.300 --> 00:05:22.779 how the number eight on a digital clock is made 00:05:22.779 --> 00:05:24.680 up of those little rigid segments? Yeah, the 00:05:24.680 --> 00:05:26.579 little blocks. Right. And to make a number three, 00:05:26.740 --> 00:05:29.579 the clock doesn't draw in shape. It just turns 00:05:29.579 --> 00:05:32.139 off the two segments on the left side. That. 00:05:32.399 --> 00:05:35.019 is the exact underlying technology at play here. 00:05:35.180 --> 00:05:37.720 So the R -Zone did the exact same thing, but 00:05:37.720 --> 00:05:40.500 instead of straight lines forming numbers, the 00:05:40.500 --> 00:05:42.540 segments were shaped like little black outlines 00:05:42.540 --> 00:05:45.639 of characters. The graphics were completely pre 00:05:45.639 --> 00:05:48.339 -drawn and permanently set into the LCD itself. 00:05:48.579 --> 00:05:50.139 Permanent. They couldn't change shape. Right. 00:05:50.220 --> 00:05:53.259 The console wasn't rendering pixels moving across 00:05:53.259 --> 00:05:56.319 a screen like a Game Boy. It was just darkening 00:05:56.319 --> 00:05:58.360 or lighting up different pre -drawn segments 00:05:58.360 --> 00:06:01.060 of the display at different times to fake the 00:06:01.060 --> 00:06:04.480 illusion of... animation it is the absolute definition 00:06:04.480 --> 00:06:07.379 of a technological sleight of hand they took 00:06:07.379 --> 00:06:11.579 the exact same clicky beepy lcd technology from 00:06:11.579 --> 00:06:14.300 a decade prior from the 80s right the kind you'd 00:06:14.300 --> 00:06:16.439 find in those cheap standalone handheld games 00:06:16.439 --> 00:06:19.420 from the 1980s and they simply changed how the 00:06:19.420 --> 00:06:21.680 light passed through it they basically projected 00:06:21.680 --> 00:06:25.300 an 80s calculator screen onto a 90s mirror i 00:06:25.300 --> 00:06:26.899 just can't get over the ergonomics of this either 00:06:26.899 --> 00:06:29.600 specifically the controller she was so flawed 00:06:29.600 --> 00:06:31.620 you have this headset on and you are tethered 00:06:31.620 --> 00:06:34.279 to the controller by a cable that is two and 00:06:34.279 --> 00:06:37.319 a half feet long 30 inches imagine getting super 00:06:37.319 --> 00:06:40.519 into an intense action game instinctively throwing 00:06:40.519 --> 00:06:44.009 your arms up in victory and just violently yanking 00:06:44.009 --> 00:06:45.870 the entire console right off your own forehead. 00:06:46.050 --> 00:06:48.829 The physical limitations were severe and the 00:06:48.829 --> 00:06:51.250 controller layout itself was equally bizarre. 00:06:51.509 --> 00:06:54.009 How many buttons did it have? You had 10 face 00:06:54.009 --> 00:06:56.769 buttons on this tethered controller plus a directional 00:06:56.769 --> 00:06:58.949 pad allowing for four directions of movement. 00:06:59.110 --> 00:07:01.709 10 face buttons for a calculator screen. Exactly. 00:07:01.790 --> 00:07:04.209 The bottom buttons were mostly universal functions. 00:07:04.550 --> 00:07:08.269 You had start select sound to toggle the mono 00:07:08.269 --> 00:07:11.160 audio and pause to pause the game. There's also 00:07:11.160 --> 00:07:13.459 an on button, which is my favorite little detail. 00:07:13.639 --> 00:07:15.600 The on -end button is a brilliant example of 00:07:15.600 --> 00:07:17.480 redundant engineering. Because it didn't even 00:07:17.480 --> 00:07:20.079 need it. No, inserting a game cartridge automatically 00:07:20.079 --> 00:07:22.959 turned the unit on anyway, making the on -end 00:07:22.959 --> 00:07:26.139 button largely useless. Amazing. You also had 00:07:26.139 --> 00:07:28.519 a volume dial, a brightness dial, and a storage 00:07:28.519 --> 00:07:30.860 slot on the controller to keep an extra game 00:07:30.860 --> 00:07:33.660 cartridge protected. And it took AAA batteries, 00:07:33.800 --> 00:07:36.579 right? Yes. It required four AAA batteries to 00:07:36.579 --> 00:07:39.040 power this entire experience. Here's where it 00:07:39.040 --> 00:07:42.220 gets really interesting. If the hardware is basically 00:07:42.220 --> 00:07:45.579 an alarm clock strapped to your skull, how did 00:07:45.579 --> 00:07:47.939 they convince kids to actually buy this thing? 00:07:48.040 --> 00:07:50.480 What was the hook? They used the oldest trick 00:07:50.480 --> 00:07:54.180 in the consumer electronics playbook. Massive 00:07:54.180 --> 00:07:57.360 intellectual properties. The licenses. Right. 00:07:57.680 --> 00:07:59.500 Instead of selling the technology, they sold 00:07:59.500 --> 00:08:02.160 the brands. Tiger Electronics went out and secured 00:08:02.160 --> 00:08:04.939 licenses for some of the absolute biggest blockbuster 00:08:04.939 --> 00:08:07.720 movies and video games of the 1990s. The lineup 00:08:07.720 --> 00:08:10.379 was crazy. The R -Zone launched with titles like 00:08:10.379 --> 00:08:14.019 Batman Forever Mortal Kombat 3, Star Wars Virtua 00:08:14.019 --> 00:08:15.959 Fighter Men in Black, and The Lost World Jurassic 00:08:15.959 --> 00:08:18.300 Park. Those are industry titans. I mean, you 00:08:18.300 --> 00:08:21.199 see Mortal Kombat 3 on a box in 1995, you're 00:08:21.199 --> 00:08:23.839 begging your parents for it. The software lineup 00:08:23.839 --> 00:08:25.980 was completely dominated by these massive titles. 00:08:26.120 --> 00:08:28.259 And they had even more ambitious plans that never 00:08:28.259 --> 00:08:30.860 saw the light of day. Really? Like what? The 00:08:30.860 --> 00:08:33.600 source notes, several canceled games that show 00:08:33.600 --> 00:08:36.379 the sheer scale of their licensing efforts. They 00:08:36.379 --> 00:08:39.500 were working on A Bug's Life, Alien vs. Predator, 00:08:39.519 --> 00:08:43.529 Godzilla, Sonic R. and star trek sonic r on the 00:08:43.529 --> 00:08:45.669 r zone that would have been something they were 00:08:45.669 --> 00:08:48.389 throwing huge money at these licenses to legitimize 00:08:48.389 --> 00:08:50.690 the device i'm trying to visualize playing a 00:08:50.690 --> 00:08:53.129 deep complex fighting game like mortal kombat 00:08:53.129 --> 00:08:56.950 3 on this how did the controls even work if every 00:08:56.950 --> 00:08:59.230 single punch and kick had to be a pre -drawn 00:08:59.230 --> 00:09:01.730 permanent segment on the screen well they relied 00:09:01.730 --> 00:09:04.820 on a very rigid universal control scheme that 00:09:04.820 --> 00:09:07.259 basically shoehorned every genre into the exact 00:09:07.259 --> 00:09:09.720 same mechanics. Oh, no. Yeah. The face buttons 00:09:09.720 --> 00:09:11.299 on the right side of the controller were labeled 00:09:11.299 --> 00:09:14.440 A, B, C, and D. In almost every game, these mapped 00:09:14.440 --> 00:09:16.840 to a four -direction attack scheme. Okay. Pressing 00:09:16.840 --> 00:09:19.840 C attacked to the left, D attacked up, B attacked 00:09:19.840 --> 00:09:22.500 to the right, and A either attacked down or, 00:09:22.559 --> 00:09:25.590 in some games, it just did nothing at all. The 00:09:25.590 --> 00:09:28.029 disconnect between reading the name Virtua Fighter 00:09:28.029 --> 00:09:30.809 on a box and the actual experience of playing 00:09:30.809 --> 00:09:32.649 it on the R -Zone must have been soul crushing. 00:09:32.850 --> 00:09:35.409 Absolutely. You have fighting games, racing games, 00:09:35.789 --> 00:09:38.529 action adventure movie tie -ins. But you are 00:09:38.529 --> 00:09:40.950 saying they all basically played exactly the 00:09:40.950 --> 00:09:44.370 same. Fundamentally, yes. Because the graphics 00:09:44.370 --> 00:09:47.929 had to be pre -drawn on the LCD, you were restricted 00:09:47.929 --> 00:09:51.429 to the exact same type of basic segmented movement, 00:09:51.529 --> 00:09:53.830 regardless of the license. You just couldn't 00:09:53.830 --> 00:09:56.389 do combos. No, you couldn't have complex combos 00:09:56.389 --> 00:09:59.210 or steering mechanics. You just watched a pre 00:09:59.210 --> 00:10:01.570 -drawn shape flash, and you pressed a button 00:10:01.570 --> 00:10:03.549 to make another pre -drawn shape flash in response. 00:10:04.080 --> 00:10:05.740 I want you to really put yourself in the shoes 00:10:05.740 --> 00:10:08.659 of a kid in the mid -90s. You finally convince 00:10:08.659 --> 00:10:11.019 your parents to buy the newest, hottest Batman 00:10:11.019 --> 00:10:14.159 Forever tie -in game. Best day ever. Right. You 00:10:14.159 --> 00:10:16.779 strap on this futuristic headset, you power it 00:10:16.779 --> 00:10:18.460 up, and you realize you were playing the exact 00:10:18.460 --> 00:10:21.679 same choppy, unanimated game you played last 00:10:21.679 --> 00:10:24.080 year, just with a different plastic sticker on 00:10:24.080 --> 00:10:26.200 the cartridge and a slightly different pre -drawn 00:10:26.200 --> 00:10:28.960 character flashing red in your eye. If we connect 00:10:28.960 --> 00:10:31.340 this to the bigger picture of consumer electronics, 00:10:31.779 --> 00:10:34.620 it reveals a fa - fascinating, albeit cynical, 00:10:34.820 --> 00:10:37.500 business strategy. How so? Piger Electronics 00:10:37.500 --> 00:10:39.879 was historically a toy company, not a high -end 00:10:39.879 --> 00:10:42.919 tech manufacturer. Their insight was that children 00:10:42.919 --> 00:10:46.019 buy brands, not microprocessors. That makes a 00:10:46.019 --> 00:10:47.919 lot of sense. Instead of upgrading the internal 00:10:47.919 --> 00:10:50.590 technology, perhaps adding actual processing 00:10:50.590 --> 00:10:53.549 power or pixel -based rendering to compete with 00:10:53.549 --> 00:10:57.149 Nintendo or Sega Tiger, reacted to the inevitable 00:10:57.149 --> 00:11:00.330 market pushback by rapidly pivoting the hardware 00:11:00.330 --> 00:11:02.629 design itself. Yeah, rather than making the games 00:11:02.629 --> 00:11:04.730 better, they just made the plastic shell different. 00:11:05.090 --> 00:11:08.649 Exactly. The R -Zone saw an incredibly fast succession 00:11:08.649 --> 00:11:11.289 of bizarre iterations. Well, the variations are 00:11:11.289 --> 00:11:12.870 the best part of this whole story. It feels like 00:11:12.870 --> 00:11:14.830 absolute panic at the corporate level. Total 00:11:14.830 --> 00:11:17.049 panic. So the original headset launched in late 00:11:17.049 --> 00:11:21.559 1995. The retail price was $29 .99, but by late 00:11:21.559 --> 00:11:23.740 1996, they were already scrambling to fix the 00:11:23.740 --> 00:11:25.279 fact that nobody wanted to actually wear this 00:11:25.279 --> 00:11:28.960 thing. Enter the R -Zone Superscreen. The Superscreen 00:11:28.960 --> 00:11:31.799 was a massive departure. It also retailed for 00:11:31.799 --> 00:11:34.600 $29 .99, but they abandoned the headgear concept 00:11:34.600 --> 00:11:37.620 entirely. Thank goodness. It was a tabletop unit 00:11:37.620 --> 00:11:40.820 that used lighted rear projection. It blew up 00:11:40.820 --> 00:11:43.279 the screen size considerably so that other people 00:11:43.279 --> 00:11:45.720 could actually watch you play. Because with the 00:11:45.720 --> 00:11:47.879 headset, only you could see it. Right. That was 00:11:47.879 --> 00:11:49.840 a major flaw of the headset. Only the person 00:11:49.840 --> 00:11:52.299 wearing it could see the mirror at the precise 00:11:52.299 --> 00:11:54.580 required angle. And the super screen supposedly 00:11:54.580 --> 00:11:57.480 added color, right? But I use the word color 00:11:57.480 --> 00:12:00.220 very loosely here. Very loosely. It didn't actually 00:12:00.220 --> 00:12:03.409 make the games themselves colorized. Some games 00:12:03.409 --> 00:12:05.429 allowed you to... And they actually changed the 00:12:05.429 --> 00:12:07.409 controller for this one, swapping out the traditional 00:12:07.409 --> 00:12:09.929 D -pad for four separate directional buttons. 00:12:10.169 --> 00:12:12.330 But that wasn't even their weirdest pivot in 00:12:12.330 --> 00:12:15.610 late 1996. We also got the R -Zone data zone. 00:12:15.830 --> 00:12:18.330 The data zone represents a company just throwing 00:12:18.330 --> 00:12:21.090 darts at a board to see what sticks. Truly. This 00:12:21.090 --> 00:12:23.110 was a flat, handheld version of the console. 00:12:23.350 --> 00:12:26.470 It featured a backlight, so it completely abandoned 00:12:26.470 --> 00:12:28.789 the mirror projection gimmick. Which is probably 00:12:28.789 --> 00:12:32.779 for the best. But inexplicably... They included 00:12:32.779 --> 00:12:35.639 a data organizer built right into the gaming 00:12:35.639 --> 00:12:38.200 console. A data organizer. For an elementary 00:12:38.200 --> 00:12:41.379 school kid. Yes. What kind of data was a 10 -year 00:12:41.379 --> 00:12:44.879 -old organizing in 1996? The phone numbers of 00:12:44.879 --> 00:12:47.000 the three kids in their cul -de -sac. It's a 00:12:47.000 --> 00:12:49.559 baffling combination of features. It speaks to 00:12:49.559 --> 00:12:52.200 the mid -90s craze of personal digital assistants 00:12:52.200 --> 00:12:55.919 or PDAs. Tiger was just smashing two completely 00:12:55.919 --> 00:12:58.059 unrelated trends together. Hoping something would 00:12:58.059 --> 00:13:00.460 work. Exactly. And the power requirements for 00:13:00.460 --> 00:13:03.120 the data zone were equally strange. It used one 00:13:03.120 --> 00:13:05.679 small watch battery constantly running just to 00:13:05.679 --> 00:13:08.159 store the organizer data and then required two 00:13:08.159 --> 00:13:10.399 separate AAA batteries to actually run the video 00:13:10.399 --> 00:13:13.480 games. What a nightmare for parents. And if the 00:13:13.480 --> 00:13:15.600 super screen and the data zone weren't enough, 00:13:15.820 --> 00:13:19.100 they tried one last desperate time in 1997 with 00:13:19.100 --> 00:13:22.200 the Arzone XPG. Oh, the XPG. XPG, of course, 00:13:22.200 --> 00:13:25.100 stands for Extreme Pocket Game because nothing 00:13:25.100 --> 00:13:28.820 says 1997 like the word extreme with no E. Spot 00:13:28.820 --> 00:13:32.220 on. The XPG was a completely handheld version 00:13:32.220 --> 00:13:35.259 running on AAA batteries. It lacked the headset 00:13:35.259 --> 00:13:37.879 entirely, but it returned to the original projection 00:13:37.879 --> 00:13:40.700 concept. Wait, so it was handheld but still projected? 00:13:40.980 --> 00:13:42.759 Yeah, it projected the display onto a mirrored 00:13:42.759 --> 00:13:44.700 surface located directly above the controller 00:13:44.700 --> 00:13:47.320 area. Yeah. Tiger was desperately trying to find 00:13:47.320 --> 00:13:49.840 a form factor, any form factor, that consumers... 00:13:49.870 --> 00:13:52.090 would actually want to engage with without ever 00:13:52.090 --> 00:13:54.399 improving the core game technology. So what does 00:13:54.399 --> 00:13:56.220 this all mean? When you have a primitive outdated 00:13:56.220 --> 00:13:58.139 technology wrapped in four or five different 00:13:58.139 --> 00:14:00.879 plastic shells, how did the world actually react? 00:14:01.259 --> 00:14:03.419 Unsurprisingly, it was an absolute critical disaster. 00:14:03.600 --> 00:14:05.720 The console was completely panned upon its release. 00:14:06.039 --> 00:14:07.879 Yeah, the contemporary reviews were visceral. 00:14:08.080 --> 00:14:10.639 The source highlights a very specific, deeply 00:14:10.639 --> 00:14:12.960 critical review by David Jones writing for the 00:14:12.960 --> 00:14:15.960 Chicago Tribune in November of 1995. He did not 00:14:15.960 --> 00:14:18.419 hold back. No, he didn't mince words at all. 00:14:18.580 --> 00:14:21.980 He outright called the R -Zone a waste of time 00:14:21.980 --> 00:14:25.059 and money. Ouch. He went much further than just 00:14:25.059 --> 00:14:28.179 critiquing the repetitive gameplay, too. He actually 00:14:28.179 --> 00:14:30.419 highlighted the physical toll the hardware took 00:14:30.419 --> 00:14:32.779 on the user. That's the part that really sticks 00:14:32.779 --> 00:14:35.600 out. Jones wrote that the screen, quote, is hard 00:14:35.600 --> 00:14:38.340 to see and the controls are very awkward, unquote. 00:14:38.700 --> 00:14:41.919 And then he added this incredible, highly specific 00:14:41.919 --> 00:14:45.980 detail. The warning. Yes. He warned readers that 00:14:45.980 --> 00:14:49.320 if you keep the headband on for, say, five minutes, 00:14:49.419 --> 00:14:51.919 you'll have two deep lines on your forehead and 00:14:51.919 --> 00:14:54.440 a headache. The head unit apparently had extra 00:14:54.440 --> 00:14:57.039 padding specifically designed to prevent that 00:14:57.039 --> 00:14:59.639 kind of pain. But according to Jones, it was 00:14:59.639 --> 00:15:01.919 a complete failure. Just a total failure. His 00:15:01.919 --> 00:15:04.120 final verdict in a major newspaper was that the 00:15:04.120 --> 00:15:06.340 R -Zone, quote, should be dumped into the trash 00:15:06.340 --> 00:15:09.340 can where it belongs, unquote. That is brutal. 00:15:10.169 --> 00:15:12.789 To have a major publication tell parents to throw 00:15:12.789 --> 00:15:15.070 your brand new product in the garbage right before 00:15:15.070 --> 00:15:17.049 the holiday shopping season. Devastating for 00:15:17.049 --> 00:15:19.210 sales. But there was one publication that offered 00:15:19.210 --> 00:15:21.250 a slightly different perspective wasn't there. 00:15:21.470 --> 00:15:24.649 There was. The gaming magazine, Electronic Gaming 00:15:24.649 --> 00:15:28.110 Monthly, commonly known as EGM, offered a slightly 00:15:28.110 --> 00:15:30.509 more forgiving take, though it came with massive 00:15:30.509 --> 00:15:33.590 glaring caveats. Right. EGM admitted right out 00:15:33.590 --> 00:15:36.009 of the gate. that the display took a lot of time 00:15:36.009 --> 00:15:38.690 to get used to, and they explicitly stated that 00:15:38.690 --> 00:15:40.769 it wasn't even in the same league as the Virtual 00:15:40.769 --> 00:15:43.350 Boy's immersive experience. Which is really saying 00:15:43.350 --> 00:15:45.470 something, considering the Virtual Boy is famously 00:15:45.470 --> 00:15:47.470 considered one of Nintendo's biggest commercial 00:15:47.470 --> 00:15:51.190 failures. Exactly, it's a low bar. But EGM's 00:15:51.190 --> 00:15:53.809 argument was purely economical and practical. 00:15:54.110 --> 00:15:56.490 They pointed out that at a retail price of $29 00:15:56.490 --> 00:15:59.929 .99, it was much less expensive than a full -fledged 00:15:59.929 --> 00:16:01.710 console. Yeah, how much was the Virtual Boy? 00:16:02.080 --> 00:16:05.460 The Virtual Boy cost around $180 at launch. Wow. 00:16:05.779 --> 00:16:08.820 So for a parent in 1995, that $150 difference 00:16:08.820 --> 00:16:11.139 was huge. It's the difference between a birthday 00:16:11.139 --> 00:16:15.179 present and a stocking stuffer. Precisely. EGM 00:16:15.179 --> 00:16:17.159 also noted that unlike the Virtual Boy, which 00:16:17.159 --> 00:16:19.899 required a dedicated tabletop stand and forced 00:16:19.899 --> 00:16:22.179 you to lean into it, the R -Zone was functionally 00:16:22.179 --> 00:16:24.259 portable. You could, in theory, take it anywhere. 00:16:24.500 --> 00:16:27.080 You could get a headache on the bus, in the car, 00:16:27.100 --> 00:16:30.100 or in your living room. The portability was limitless. 00:16:30.299 --> 00:16:32.809 True. But even with that slight defense regarding 00:16:32.809 --> 00:16:35.269 its price point, the long -term legacy of the 00:16:35.269 --> 00:16:38.090 R -Zone is incredibly bleak. Very bleak. It was 00:16:38.090 --> 00:16:41.350 entirely discontinued by 1997, a total lifespan 00:16:41.350 --> 00:16:44.070 of just two years, and modern retrospectives 00:16:44.070 --> 00:16:47.019 have not been kind. Not at all. Gaming historians 00:16:47.019 --> 00:16:50.159 look back on it as a fascinating disaster. In 00:16:50.159 --> 00:16:53.639 2008, Mikel Raparaz of the gaming website GamesRadarPlus 00:16:53.639 --> 00:16:56.759 included the R -Zone on a definitive list of 00:16:56.759 --> 00:16:58.799 the 10 worst game consoles released up to that 00:16:58.799 --> 00:17:02.320 time. Top 10 worst. That's rough. He perfectly 00:17:02.320 --> 00:17:04.460 captured the essence of the failure, stating 00:17:04.460 --> 00:17:06.299 it was essentially just a gimmicky version of 00:17:06.299 --> 00:17:09.900 the same awful clicky beepy LCD games that Tiger 00:17:09.900 --> 00:17:11.759 had been dumping on the market since the 80s. 00:17:11.779 --> 00:17:14.740 Yeah. And in 2016, the tech publication Motherboard 00:17:14.740 --> 00:17:17.240 wrote a piece calling it perhaps the most infamous 00:17:17.240 --> 00:17:20.220 product ever associated with Tiger. They noted 00:17:20.220 --> 00:17:21.900 that while it was similar to the Virtual Boy 00:17:21.900 --> 00:17:24.539 in some aesthetic ways, the R -Zone was, in their 00:17:24.539 --> 00:17:26.940 words, much, much worse. It's a legacy built 00:17:26.940 --> 00:17:32.190 entirely on frustration. basic alarm clock LCD 00:17:32.190 --> 00:17:35.130 games, licensed the biggest intellectual properties 00:17:35.130 --> 00:17:37.750 on the planet to build hype, and tried to trick 00:17:37.750 --> 00:17:39.430 consumers into thinking they were buying the 00:17:39.430 --> 00:17:42.289 future with a flashy piece of red plastic. It 00:17:42.289 --> 00:17:44.990 is truly the ultimate cautionary tale of packaging 00:17:44.990 --> 00:17:47.349 over substance. We've talked about the original 00:17:47.349 --> 00:17:50.670 forehead -denting headgear, the massive D -battery 00:17:50.670 --> 00:17:53.730 -chugging super screen, the utterly baffling 00:17:53.730 --> 00:17:55.990 data zone organizer, and the desperate extreme 00:17:55.990 --> 00:17:59.089 pocket game. All in two years. But the core lesson 00:17:59.089 --> 00:18:01.150 for you listening today is that you simply cannot 00:18:01.150 --> 00:18:03.849 wrap outdated technology in a trendy new package 00:18:03.849 --> 00:18:06.170 and expect the public not to notice. They will 00:18:06.170 --> 00:18:09.170 notice. The R -Zone thought it could take 1980s 00:18:09.170 --> 00:18:12.190 pre -drawn LCD tech, dress it up in 1990s VR 00:18:12.190 --> 00:18:14.829 headgear, slap a Batman sticker on it and win 00:18:14.829 --> 00:18:17.529 the holiday season. And they failed spectacularly. 00:18:17.630 --> 00:18:20.250 This raises an important question for us to consider 00:18:20.250 --> 00:18:22.670 as we navigate today's rapidly evolving tech 00:18:22.670 --> 00:18:25.009 landscape. Well, the R -Zone failed because it 00:18:25.009 --> 00:18:27.190 tried to masquerade cheap primitive technology. 00:18:27.690 --> 00:18:30.430 as a futuristic, head -mounted reality experience. 00:18:31.130 --> 00:18:33.730 When we look around today, especially at the 00:18:33.730 --> 00:18:36.549 explosion of modern wearables, smart devices, 00:18:36.829 --> 00:18:39.190 and the newest iterations of virtual and augmented 00:18:39.190 --> 00:18:42.569 reality, are there highly hyped gadgets out there 00:18:42.569 --> 00:18:44.869 right now doing the exact same thing? That's 00:18:44.869 --> 00:18:47.269 a great point. Are tech companies currently hiding 00:18:47.269 --> 00:18:50.890 basic, outdated technology behind flashy, uncomfortable, 00:18:51.150 --> 00:18:54.170 and trendy new form factors? It's really worth 00:18:54.170 --> 00:18:56.009 keeping a critical eye out for the modern -day 00:18:56.009 --> 00:18:58.599 our zones. That is a brilliant point to leave 00:18:58.599 --> 00:19:00.720 off on. We always like to think we are so much 00:19:00.720 --> 00:19:02.940 savvier than the consumers of the past, but the 00:19:02.940 --> 00:19:05.359 marketing tricks rarely change, only the packaging 00:19:05.359 --> 00:19:07.859 does. Thank you for taking this journey back 00:19:07.859 --> 00:19:10.339 to 1995 with us to explore one of the weirdest 00:19:10.339 --> 00:19:12.960 missteps in gaming history. Until next time, 00:19:12.980 --> 00:19:14.539 keep an eye on what you strap to your head and 00:19:14.539 --> 00:19:15.099 stay curious.