Prototype VMU for N64 controller? Sega stole the idea?

There's a prototype on eBay from someone who worked at hardware amanufacturing, it's about a screen for the Nintendo 64 controller that connects to the expansion slot. While the item is interesting by itself, the description of the item tells a story thats even more interesting, basically saying that Nintendo and Sega took the idea and made something different from it, even EGM had their hands on it. Here's the link of the item:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Prototype-...195024?hash=item3d53753410:g:DIgAAOSwZW5aN2c9

And here's the item description as of now:

Spoiler: Item description

This is the only prototype that exists of the "Secret Screen" discussed in the Sept. 1997 edition of Electronic Gaming Monthly.
This was designed to be a screen for the Nintendo 64, but Sega had a blurb in the magazine on the same page discussing Black Belt system which became Dreamcast. So the Dreamcast designers and engineers saw the N64 Secret Screen on the same page below their write up, and turned the concept into the VMU in the Dreamcast controllers.
This prototype had two screens: N64 Play Action Football and N64 Battleground Domination. There is no complete game for either one, just a selection screen for football plays and a world map. They can be seen on the small screen when you plug the cable into the expansion slot on the bottom of an N64 controller, and then you can change screen by pushing the small button. I think the controller stick or buttons moved the cursor around on the screen at one point but I'm not sure if it does now. The screen does show both options, though, even if it's hard to see in the pictures. The included N64 controller must be plugged into a N64 system (not included!).
You can see in the last picture that the plastic is cracked where it's thinnest on top (from being sent back and forth to Japan)... you need to use some super glue there.
The magazine article is one of the pics above, and I also have the rejection letter from Nintendo if anyone wants to see that.
Let me know if you have any more questions or want more details on the story.
EDIT / UPDATE:
So a few people have asked my about this because they had no idea about where Sega got the Dreamcast WMU idea up until now. I've added a pic to the auction showing the entire magazine page from Sept. 1997 EGM that shows the Secret Sega Black Belt system right above my N64 Secret Screen. So Sega was in the very early stages of Dreamcast development, got a tear sheet from the magazine showing their write up, saw my N64 product reveal right below and decided to add this feature to the Dreamcast. Even the Dreamcast description of VMU sounded exactly like my press release.
I worked at a company that started as a Nintendo hardware licensee for the original NES then got licensed for other platforms.

I was trying to get Nintendo to do the VMU for Nintendo 64. They had me show it to Electronic Arts for possible use with Madden and a few other places. When EA passed, Nintendo told me they would not do it themselves, so I got Todd Mowatt, who was editor at EGM and a friend of mine, to do the article. Then you can see what happened: Sega saw the magazine article and did the Dreamcast VMU without contacting me. Later Nintendo did Game Link cable between GameBoy and GameCube also without contacting me. And unfortunately, I got nothing out of it. You can see details on this and a few other projects I've been involved with from an interview I did with Nintendo Age back in 2012, uploaded here: englishu.com/GALDEN-Nintendo-Age-5-2012-p18-21.pdf

The only other prototype stuff I have right now is listed in my other auctions. (Q Sound controllers I worked on.) The rest was either sold already or in boxes I haven't opened yet.

 

Hook it up to a N64DD and see what happens is all I have to say

 

Wow that's pretty cool. I love it when this shit pops up.

 

Very interesting and the first I've ever heard of it!

 

I'm really sure SEGA had the VMU concept before Sept '97 as the vmu was announced early '98.

 

They did - it was mentioned in the early developer documentation (although back then it was being described as a "PDA") and was specifically described as being both a secondary screen for the player and a removable unit. Honestly the whole description in that auction is dripping with bullshit - it's just a prototype (or possibly even just a mockup) that was built in an unsuccessful attempt to pitch it to Nintendo who apparently weren't interested but suggested that EA might be - but since it never got into production I guess they weren't either.

 

I didnt read it but I'm assuming that if someone credible stepped forth that might help wouldnt it?

 

I don't know about bullshit, but definitely over selling it. It looks like a pitch mockup (although a cool one as the screen displays something at least). He states it displays the two screens showing what it would look like, with a physical button to switch between the two. It seems to use the N64 just for power, I doubt any data transfer could happen at the stage it's at.
The statement about how it may be able to be controlled by the controller, with the way he words how it probably doesn't anymore smells a tad bullshitty though. Why would you splice a button in like that if you could have just pushed 'R' or something to switch between the screens then.

I like how he seems choked he didn't get credit for giving the idea to Sega or Nintendo.

Either way, it's still a cool bit of history. Not $5000 cool but still cool to see pop up for sale.

 

Why's he complaining about not getting anything? If he didn't do anything to protect his idea, then it's kind of his fault.

 

This level of bitterness does add some credence in my opinion. I don't take his word as unbiased, but I'm fairly confident that this was his work.

And that would make sense...and still it seems equally plausible that each company came to the same idea independently. After all, this is the late 90's we're talking about here. LCD technology was just getting practical to use on low priced, low power consumption items. I'm sure there were plenty of development firms sitting around asking themselves "what if we put a screen on that?".

 

Maybe bullshit is a bit hard - but I just find stuff that was made for an unsuccessful pitch much less interesting than something that was made for a successful pitch and you could see the final production item would be. Maybe it's engineering cynicism - I've worked on a bunch of things that for various reasons never made it to production and honestly don't consider them to mean anything. It's the ones that acutally get out the door that matter.

In fairness, I have to say it's a nice mockup though - at least it acutally does something.

 

He seems a little bit on the salty side, even back then. He had his project denied by Nintendo so took to getting someone to publish something about it in a magazine either to try and make them look bad and/or to get them to rethink their decision. Then 20 years later is still mad about it when trying to sell it on eBay and making all kinds of claims that he can't prove.

Also didn't the Sony Pocketstation come out around this time?

 

Pocket Station was after the VMU, released in 1999.

 

Antz was released before Bugs Life, but Antz was started after they heard rumours about Bugs Life. http://www.bucketbros.com/text/disney-dreamworks-feud.html

Release dates are irrelevant to working out who copied who. PocketStation was released 6 months after VMU, someone from Sony didn't walk into a shop and discover the VMU on sale and go back and design & ship the PocketStation plus get developers to support it in six months.

The relationship between PlayStation Move & Wii motes is also not as simple as people think.

 

I don't think anyone here was claiming that. Although, I seem to remember the general consensus in 1999 seemed to be that Sony copied Sega as, well, just look at them, they're extremely similar in looks.

The Pocket Station is certainly not a copy of this 'Secret Screen' though, as the Pocket Station only functioned as a memory card, but with a screen. No game really needed to be coded with it in mind, really the only extra programming that could be done was making a little game that could be transferred from a game disc to the memory card. I don't think even a ton of games did this, only one I had was Final Fantasy. Otherwise, the screen was just for memory management. Oh, and the wicked intense clock function. In this respect, the VMU certainly seems more thought out, and by that logic, could have helped in the inspiration for the Pocket Station. Sony was trying pretty hard to out do Sega in this time period.

 

The VMU could have inspired the Pocket Station, the Pocket Station could have inspired the VMU or they could have both been inspired by this N64 prototype. Only the people involved can know.

You certainly can't assume that because Sega did a better job that they had the idea first, that just came down to timing. The Dreamcast wasn't out, so they could change the controllers. The PlayStation was out, so they were stuck.

 

You're entirely right, no one knows exactly what happened except for the people directly involved. I'm not assuming though, I'm making an observation, it could be right, it could be wrong. It just seems logical that Sony was trying to kill some of Sega's hype with a 'hey look, we got that too'. If the VMU was revealed in early 1998, Sony had almost a year to design/produce the thing, and to be honest, it did end up seeming like a rushed product. The hardware itself was cool (and I wanted one back then too until it never came out here), but the support from Sony ended up somewhat lacking. I mean, why not release it outside of Japan?

Although now that I got talking about this I may end up on a mission to collect some of the PS1 games that have content for the Pocket Station..I'd like to play around with this thing properly, I really only use mine as a memory card.

 

One possible lead as to find out who came up with the idea first is to check who started writing the software/games first.

 

Could also check things like patent dates or dates of development docs like what TriMesh brought up.

You could also argue that the VMU and PocketStation were a response to the popularity of things like the Tamagotchi. Although Sega referencing the VMU as a PDA means that probably wasn't their original intention.

I've been meaning to get a Pocket Station, I've always had a fondness for odd-ish memory cards.

 

I'm pretty sure they were thinking along Tamagotchi lines - the very first publicly released VMU application was that Godzilla virtual pet game that came out about 5 months before the console did. Since it was about 20 years ago, I can't remember all the details of the docs I read, but the main comments about the "PDA" were that it could be used to play minigames that could potentially be integrated with the main game on the DC. The other thing that was heavily emphasized was that if two people had VMUs they could transfer data between them without access to a console. It's possible this was influenced by the link feature in Pokemon, but really who knows.
There was also a bit about how when the unit was inserted in a controller it could be used to display information that was only of interest to the specific player, like ammunition levels.
I'm also not sure when the term "Visual Memory" first turned up - the original release of the Godzilla VMU didn't use it, although they later got a sticker saying "ドリームキャスト対応" and ”ビジュアルメモリとしでも使用できます” - I.E. "Supports Dreamcast - can be used as a Visual Memory"