There are a lot of debates about the origins of the VR concept. If we go back to 1957, there was actually a functional VR machine and it was called Sensorama. Sensorama was developed by Morton Heilig who was a cinematographer and a filmmaker. Sensorama was like an arcade theatre machine that would give users an experience of a simulated street when sitting in an imaginary motorcycle. It gave users a feeling like when they were in a real street by having winds that are generated by fans, simulated noises, and the smell of the city.
However, the word “virtual reality” was only popular by the 1980s thanks to Jaron Lanier-the the pioneer of this field (Chan, 2018, p.30). Jaron Lanier was the founder of VPL Research which is one of the first companies that produce VR products. Although the company went bankrupt in 1999 it was still one of the major milestones in the VR field.
In 1991, Sega is one of the first companies that announced the VR headset for arcade games and their video game consoles. However, it was never released because of its safety.
Almost 20 years later, in 2010, the first prototype of the Oculus Rift was created. Oculus Rift is one of the most famous VR headsets right now. In 2014, Facebook bought this company with 2 billion dollars.
