Tiger Electronics · 1995–1997 · Not reliably recorded
A $30 headset that projected a red LCD game onto a mirror in front of one eye. Tiger launched it in 1995, the same year as the Virtual Boy, and it is routinely ranked among the worst consoles ever made.
Tiger Electronics, known for its inexpensive handheld LCD games, unveiled the R-Zone at the American International Toy Fair in February 1995 and released it later that year. The original model, the R-Zone Headgear, was a head-mounted unit with a separate controller, sold for $29.99. Each game cartridge contained its own transparent LCD screen; the headset shone light through it and projected the image onto a mirrored surface held in front of one of the player's eyes. The display showed only dark red. The idea borrowed the excitement around virtual reality in the mid-1990s — the same year Nintendo launched its own red, head-level Virtual Boy — without any of the technology. The R-Zone was not stereoscopic or immersive: it was a simple LCD game with a fixed, pre-printed screen, viewed through a mirror. Tiger nonetheless secured major licences, and the library included Batman Forever, Virtua Fighter, Mortal Kombat 3, Star Wars games and The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Tiger revised the format repeatedly. The R-Zone SuperScreen of 1996 projected the image onto a larger screen and allowed colour, the DataZone added personal organiser functions, and the R-Zone XPG of 1997 became a conventional handheld. None succeeded, and the line was discontinued in 1997. A Chicago Tribune reviewer called it a waste of time and money, citing the uncomfortable headband and hard-to-see display, and later critics have consistently placed it among the worst consoles ever released.