Feel every blow Deadly battle. Feel the booming explosions By 3. Feel the throbbing heat of being ‘on fire’ NBA jam. Sounds cool, right? Wrong. Very wrong.
In 1994, Aura Systems introduced the Interactor, a haptic vest that attached to children’s backs and delivered vibrations that synced with the action of Super NES and Sega Genesis games. The February 1994 issue Popular science has included the device in our ‘What’s New’ section and describes it as:
The Interactor vest vibrates in sync with direct hits and music basslines when connected to the audio output of a video game system, TV or stereo system. You can adjust the intensity of the pulses or filter out background music. Price: $89.
The Interactor seemed cool and got a lot of hype when it came out, so how did it end up being lost in tech gaming history? Simply put, it just wasn’t something kids wanted and their parents weren’t willing to spend the money for a gadget their kids loved. As the then 12-year-old Jeremy Belcher said Cincinnati researcher in 1994: “It feels weird.” Phew.
Popular science host Kevin Lieber bought an Interactor on eBay and tried to understand why this then-advanced VR backpack flopped so hard. It’s a lesson in $5 million marketing blitzes, being a prolific inventor, and good old cymatics.
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