VERS

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Virtual Entertainment and Reality Software
Vers Logo.png
VERS 720 console.png
VERS 720, a video game system released under the brand
Product type
Owner Portal Corporation
Syzygy Interactive (Arcade boards only)
Country Astoria
Introduced 5 December 1997; 26 years ago (1997-12-05)
Markets Video gaming
Previous owners

Virtual Entertainment and Reality Software (V.E.R.S. or Vers) is a video gaming brand created by Comware and currently owned by Portal. The brand consists of four video game consoles, as well as applications (games), streaming services, miniature computers, an online service by the name of VERS Network, arcade boards by Syzygy Interactive, and a game development studio by the name of VERS Art Studios.

The brand was first introduced in Astoria during the late 1980s as the name of Comware Corporation's brand of miniature and mobile computers. In 1995, the Supreme Court would disassemble Comware in Astoria v. Comware Corporation for the company's violation of anti-trust laws. As a result, the company would be divided with the Vers brand being conceded to the newly-formed Portal Corporation. The original VERS console would launch in December 1997, and after reported sales of over 17 million units sold by 2001, had become the brand's, as well as the company's, first success.

Portal's second console, the VERS Powerplay, was released in 2002 and has sold 63 million units as of June 2020. The third console, the VERS 360, was released in December 2007 and has sold 51 million units. The fourth console, the VERS 720, was released in November 2013, and has become the highest-selling VERS console with more than 110 million units sold. The fifth line of consoles, under the codename "Olympus", was released in late 2022.

Consoles

1997–2007: VERS

The original VERS console, released in 1997.

The original Virtual Entertainment Reality Software, or VERS, was released on 5 December 1997 in North America, 30 January 1998 in Japan, and 3 April in Australia and Europe. It was the company's first foray into the gaming console market at time, and were very ambitious. As part of the fifth generation of video game consoles, the VERS competed with Sega's Saturn and Nintendo's 2000 console. The VERS was the first console offered by an Astorian company in history. The name V.E.R.S. is an acronym for Virtual Entertainment and Reality Software.

Upon release, the console proved popular for its extensive game library, popular franchises, low retail price, and aggressive youth marketing which advertised it as the preferable console for adolescents and adults. The top tier franchises exclusive to the VERS included Modern Combat: Special Ops (released during PowerPlay era), Slayer, Death Race, and Soul Taker, all of which spawned numerous sequels. VERS games continued to sell until Portal ceased production of the console and its games on 27 March 2008—more than eleven years after it had been released, and a year following the release of the brand's third generation, the VERS 360. The integrated VERS Live service launched in November 1999 allowed players to play games online with or without a broadband connection. It first competed with Sega's Saturn online service but later primarily competed with Nintendo 2000's online service. Although the two competing services were free, while VERSLive required a subscription - as well as broadband-only connection, which was not completely adopted yet - VERSLive was a success due to it having better servers, features such as a friend list, and milestone titles such as ExoForce 2 (released in October 2000), which became the best-selling VERS video game and was by far the most popular online game for the original VERS system. A total of 11,289 VERS games were released, with cumulative sales of 1.2 billion units. Syzygy Interactive would team up with Portal to develop an arcade board based on the VERS, the Virtual Arcade Layering System (VALS).

2002-2007: VERS PowerPlay

The VERS PowerPlay, launched in 2002.

The VERS PowerPlay (officially stylized as VERS P2) is a smaller, redesigned version of the original VERS platform. It was released on 3 May 2002, and went on to outsell all other consoles throughout the remainder of the year—including the original console. The PowerPlay is fully compatible with all VERS software, but compatibility with peripherals may vary. The updated model also had additional changes such as the removal of the parallel and serial ports from the left-side of the console, the removal of the reset button (the power button is also labeled as a reset button, but the console cannot be reset without entirely turning it off), the internal power supply was replaced with an external 7.2VDC power adapter with the other required power rails being generated internally on the main using a mixture of regulators and DC/DC converters for the various rails. It also incorporated a slightly modified version of the menu design previously used only on former VERS miniature computers. The later revision (still designated as SCPH-10x but with a different PM-41(2) main circuit board) was functionally identical, but reduced manufacturing cost for a last time by moving to more highly integrated chips, namely the replacement of external RAM with on-chip RAM, which both reduced the parts count and allowed the use of smaller and cheaper packages by reducing the number of pins required.

2007-2013: VERS 360

Gallery

See also

Wikipedia logo This page uses material from the Wikipedia page Xbox, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (view authors).