The year was 1993. A video game company by the name of Sega was flush with money from gangbuster sales of it’s hit Sega Genesis/Master Drive console. Early ‘90s Virtual Reality (VR) tech was all the rage, and while Sega had announced in 1991 that it was prepared to cash in on the VR craze with it’s own VR headset release in ‘93 — Sega’s VR headset was looking less and less likely to release due to development difficulties and potentially high production costs. With their back against the wall and more money to burn, Sega needed a “revolutionary” backup to their failing VR plans. Enter the Sega Activator. The Activator was Sega’s answer to the mind-blowing VR tech coming out in the 90s, but at a (semi) more “affordable” price.
We all know VR — put on a headset, look around, live in the world you see surrounding you at all sides. With the Activator, Sega took the inverse approach. Instead of reacting to a virtual world around you, Sega said — what if the world around you reacted to YOU, the gamer! Sounds cool, right?!…. Spoiler: The Activator was the furthest thing from cool and was one of the biggest bait and switches in the history of anything electronic ever.
The Activator was marketed as the ultimate way to become one with the video game — every punch and every kick would be translated to those actions on screen! Of course, this punch/kick translation marketing ploy was as virtual (NOT real) as Sega’s failed attempt at riding the VR craze. The Activator didn’t work in any way, shape, or form compared to how it was marketed, and using the Activator didn’t feel like you were in the game, but rather were still pressing typical controller buttons, but in a really annoying and slow/clunky way.
To explain what it was like to actually use the Activator, one must first understand the product’s technological origins. A company called Interactive Light developed the Activator for Sega based on the “Light Harp” created by musician Assaf Gurner. Gurner’s Light Harp was actually based on an even earlier technology patented in the mid-1970s and popularized in the early ‘80s called a “laser harp.” A laser harp consists of several lasers fanned out and pointing at the sky — each laser beam is attached to a sound, so if you block one of the beams with your hand/foot, etcetera, you activate the sound attached to that laser beam. Where the laser harp’s beams were highly visible streaks of light, Asaf Gurner’s Light Harp used infrared light beams invisible to the naked eye. Enter the Sega Activator with it’s completely manipulative and dishonest marketing material:
We’ve reached the tragic point in our story where I admit that I was one of the many moronic ‘90s kids that duped their parents into buying the overpriced Sega Activator after seeing ads like the one above. In truth, I was stupid to believe the Activator was some fantastical ahead of its time movement tracking simulator that 1-for-1 tracked my body movements like the Microsoft Kinect would actually do decades later. In reality, the Activator was just as its name implied: a way to activate corresponding buttons on the controller by hovering over invisible infrared lights to activate movements/actions on the screen.
While the Activator was sold as a way to live out one’s desire to become a martial arts master in game, the reality was — you just hovered your hands nonchalantly over infrared beams to trigger in-game actions. The process of hovering hands over said beams was clunky and it was way easier and faster/more responsive to just pick up a regular controller to perform button actions. Not to mention the Activator had very specific requirements for it to work, including the unit’s distance from the TV and needing to go through a “calibration” process every time you switch to a new game. Fun?!
The magical hex of the “full body” controller Sega promised was a spell that quickly wore off once users realized they were at a disadvantage using the Activator over a typical controller. While Sega had commercials showing Activator users smoking their frustrated controller-using counterparts, the inverse was actually true and all it took was a couple minutes with the Activator to become bored and frustrated with the sham. All eight infrared beams on the Activator correspond to up, down, left, right, a, b, c and start buttons, so yeah, it was just less of a hassle and gave one quicker response times using the ‘ole fingers on a typical controller. Not to mention ceiling fans and slanted/height differing ceilings would throw the usability of the Activator off big time.
The Sega Activator was so sucky it took only a few months after the product’s release for the flagrant lie of a product to be discontinued. Yes, a product that I suckered my parents into buying me, that I honestly used once or twice for a few minutes, was discontinued after only a few months. Yep, I barely used a product that cost $150 in 1993 and, accounting for inflation, would cost $271.54 in 2021’s monies when this article was written (that’s almost the cost of a brand new Nintendo Switch!).
To summarize, I suckered my parents into buying an almost $300 dollar item (adjusted for inflation) for about 20-30 cumulative minutes of use before it hit the dust heap in the garage. If civilization has learned anything from the brief failure of the Sega Activator, let it stand as yet another testament to all parents who work too damn hard and sacrifice too damn much to please their never-satiated offspring. Thank you mom and dad for all you did and continue to do. And if you, dear readers, have any other junk tech crap you convinced your parents to buy that you barely used, hit us up in the comments below with your story and shower your parents with the praise they deserve for their sacrifices!
- The Sega VR headset that the Activator was supposed to be a stopgap for, was never released by Sega because the company claimed “the virtual reality effect was too realistic, so users might move while wearing the headset and injure themselves”.
- Four “activated” games were quasi-designed to be used with the Activator (but was there really any difference between activated and non-”activated”? Nope!). These games were: Best of the Best: Championship Karate, Eternal Champions, Greatest Heavyweights, Streets of Rage 3.
- Sega designed two games specifically for the Activator that were supposed to ship with the product, but both games were canceled: Air Drums and Bounty Hunter.
- Infrared radiation was discovered in 1800 by astronomer Sir William Herschel and that same infrared light used by the Activator is invisible to your eyes because the electromagnetic radiation has wavelengths longer than those of visible light.
- Sega marketed the Activator as a “martial arts simulator”, but the only martial arts exercise one got when using the device was from kicking the Activator to the curb after your friend with a normal controller smoked your Activator-using butt.
- The Sega VR headset that the Activator was supposed to be a stopgap for, was never released by Sega because the company claimed “the virtual reality effect was too realistic, so users might move while wearing the headset and injure themselves”.
- Four “activated” games were quasi-designed to be used with the Activator (but was there really any difference between activated and non-”activated”? Nope!). These games were: Best of the Best: Championship Karate, Eternal Champions, Greatest Heavyweights, Streets of Rage 3.
- Sega designed two games specifically for the Activator that were supposed to ship with the product, but both games were canceled: Air Drums and Bounty Hunter.
- Infrared radiation was discovered in 1800 by astronomer Sir William Herschel and that same infrared light used by the Activator is invisible to your eyes because the electromagnetic radiation has wavelengths longer than those of visible light.
- Sega marketed the Activator as a “martial arts simulator”, but the only martial arts exercise one got when using the device was from kicking the Activator to the curb after your friend with a normal controller smoked your Activator-using butt.
