Every so often a company tries to come out with a faux virtual reality headset that works with games that have already come out. These usually end up falling flat on their faces for a number of reasons (not the least of which is headaches after 20 minutes of use). The Headplay tries to resolve that issue by fixing the main cause. Apparently most headsets like it use two images instead of one, forcing the players eyes to split in-between them. The Headplay uses one and is supposed to fix that.

Does it do that? I have no idea. How does it work? Alright, I guess.

Using the Headplay is like sitting in a movie theater with a sheet of blurriness ahead of you and playing a game. It accepts most types of input (Halo 3 was on display) and they all look good. It has lenses to clear up the image for glasses wearers (see: gamers) but they don’t work as well as my typical frames. There are some pictures below as well as an excerpt of their official press release. I am not too sure if I am convinced of its true power. Even after playing with it I still feel like there we are a few generations from the experience they advertise and the price tag isn't a gentle dip into the wallet ($499 or $549 with internal batteries) for something only one person can use at a time.

HEADPLAY, INC. ANNOUNCES THE LAUNCH OF ITS HIGHLY-ANTICIPATED HEADPLAY PERSONAL CINEMA SYSTEM Portable, Visual Headset and Multi-Media Center Delivers Immersive Viewing Experience for Gaming, Movie Watching and Internet Use The HEADPLAY Personal Cinema System is Available Now at www.headplay.com Santa Monica, CA (September 20, 2007) Headplay, Inc., a Los Angeles-based visual entertainment and technology company, announced today the launch of the HEADPLAY Personal Cinema System, now available for purchase online at http://www.headplay.com. Re-defining the portable media device category, the HEADPLAY Personal Cinema System is a visual headset and multi-media center that provides an immersive, visually stunning cinematic viewing experience for both game and movie enthusiasts, a no-compromises mobile entertainment experience. Combining a revolutionary design with proprietary, high-performance optical technologies, the HEADPLAY Personal Cinema System offers an innovative, mobile, personal viewing experience not currently available in the market. Connecting directly to game consoles, DVD players, select iPods, Mac and PCs, the Personal Cinema System provides near-universal compatibility with hardware platforms worldwide and is capable of reading stored media using compact flash card or USB memory stick formats. Additionally, the HEADPLAY Personal Cinema System delivers true stereoscopic 3D viewing of 3D game and movie content... ...Headplay, Inc. is a subsidiary of Headplay International Inc, a visual entertainment and technology company with operations in Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., Calgary, Alberta, Canada and Beijing, China. HEADPLAY is dedicated to developing new and visionary products for the consumer electronics market.