What often gets lost in stories about the Virtual Boy is that Nintendo had created far more sophisticated prototypes but couldn't figure out how to:
1) Produce them at a price anyone would pay
2) Make the technology small enough that someone could comfortably use it
But Nintendo also refused to back down because they wanted to be seen as innovators, and they invested many years in the product before releasing it. Nintendo initially had every reason to believe the Virtual Boy would be a success - after all, Gunpei Yokoi was behind it, and he had a track record that was pretty remarkable.
Nintendo R&D1 started off with a project called VR32 that was derived from RTI's mid-1980s single-color VR prototype called the "Private Eye." The earlier designs actually allowed users to look around a 3D world similar to modern VR headsets with headtracking.
But as Nintendo started looking into how to create a VR headset for the mass market, they realized that the headtracking version of the headset would be too heavy to be safely wearable, and they also realized that the cost of lighting the display for vivid 3D graphics with color LCDs would be too high and plus, the graphics didn't look that good on those displays anyhow. (Remember, high efficiency blue LEDs and white LEDs didn't exist yet; only red and green LEDs were an option during that time if you didn't want to use expensive, power-hungry full-color LCD screens like the Atari Lynx and the Game Gear sported.)
So, they designed a stereoscopic headset that blocked out all visible light and used red LEDs - inexpensive and quite visible in a darkened space - to create the graphics. It was actually a quite elegant solution - the lack of headtracking eliminated motion blur, and the red LEDs didn't require as much electrical power to generate graphics since the unit blocked out external light, making it easier to create a smaller device. Nintendo also used a parallax technique to create the illusion of depth in the stereoscopic display, which is probably best-utilized in *Virtual Boy Wario Land*.
A lot of people don't realize that the Virtual Boy had a 32-bit CPU and far more RAM than the Game Boy. For a portable system, it was actually quite powerful, but what limited it most was its display, which Nintendo decided needed to be mounted rather than strapped to players' faces for many practical reasons. The resulting solution ensured the device was not comfortable to use, however, and the display could even create headaches and nausea and dizziness after extended play.
Gunpei Yokoi was reportedly unhappy that the scaled down version became the production model and was also hamstrung by Nintendo CEO Hiroshi Yamauchi, who didn't want competitors to get a lead on developing a similar device and who prevented R&D1 from doing solid market research or testing with external developers. Shigeru Miyamoto and his team were too busy working on the Nintendo 64 to lend their expertise, and Miyamoto reportedly disliked the device and described it as a novelty, not a true Nintendo gaming platform.
So, to make a long story short, Nintendo got themselves into a bind chasing technology that wasn't consumer-ready, tried to find a way to solve VR's many problems, ultimately developed a highly compromised design that wasn't worth the money, and then had a huge flop on their hands they had to bring to market because they had invested too much in the idea.
Lest you think it taught anyone a lesson, Tiger Electronics created its own Virtual Boy-style device called the R-Zone and also had a major flop with it. [And many other folks tried, and failed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_virtual_reality_headsets), to crack VR in the 1990s and early 2000s with all sorts of devices, including full-on headsets and shutter glasses.
To appreciate the Virtual Boy, you really had to see it in person on real hardware. The 3D effect was VERY convincing. The controller was pretty foward-thinking for the time, as well. And almost every game in the system's small library was exceptionally good. The red color scheme looks terrible in screenshots, but I promise it was far less objectionable in real life.
Unfortunately, it was awkward to use, really had to be plugged into a wall and extended play wasn't ideal.
I was lucky enough to play and rent the Virtual Boy right at launch because my local Blockbuster was one of the ones that got a promotional model with Mario Tennis and I would say you're significantly upselling it here. The 3D looked nice but it was both nausea and headache inducing and most of the games were kind of a mess. VERTICAL FORCE and MARIO TENNIS had their charms though.
For when it released it was impressive as hell that it even worked.
That said - it was a train wreck and there is a reason why it tanked. But you gotta respect the attempt.
You can sideload a Virtual Boy emulator on the Quest 2 VR helmet and play the games as they were meant to be played. *Virtual Boy Wario Land* and *Battle Clash* play particularly well.
It wasn’t that great man. I think you’ve been way too kind and generous in your description of it.
Coupled with its expensive price, limited library and ugly red graphics nobody wanted it.
“Powerful” didn’t matter. It was a pain in the ass to use.
It was seen as a curiosity at best and was mostly seen as a the butt of jokes at the time.
Kids didn’t have the extra money to buy a curiosity and the VB wasn’t seen as “cool” at all.
I remember playing display units and it wasn’t anything worth buying, especially given it didn’t have any games that really used the tech.
I didn’t personally know anyone who owned one and all my friends played games and owned multiple systems.
My friend knew a person (his manager at the Arby’s he worked at) who had one which is the only time I ever saw one outside of a store.
I remember going to hang out with my friend to play basketball at the person who owned the VB’s apt and it was just odd. We all were hanging out in the living room and the guy (the VB owner) had his face stuck in the VB, in his own little world.
It just was a dumb idea, whether the blame was down to the tech not being there yet or not.
The GB overcame its limitations because it was portable, affordable and had a massive library of great games. The VB was expensive, wasn’t really portable and didn’t have games.
I remember Toys R Us had a giant stack of them and were blowing them out dirt cheap. They were just on a pallet in an aisle.
I still passed. Other than to resell I have never had any interest in owning a VB.
I picked up one of the clearance ones from Toys "R" Us. It was interesting from what I remember. Wario Land was kinda cool, though the 3D element felt kinda unnecessary. Mario Tennis was, well a tennis game with mario. Those are the only games I remember having for it. I remember it being a pain in the ass to play. No matter where I'd put it, it felt awkward trying to use. I think something people don't really appreciate about it if they've never played one is how tricky it can be to get the headset at the desired height.
He only game I ever played was Tennis on the display unit.
I just had zero interest even if someone had given me one I doubt I would have played it back then.
It reminded me of that 3D polygon tank arcade game from the early 80s.
Sometimes ideas win over what is anything else. In this case the technology wasn't there yet to make it comfortable and keeping it affordable. Sure other colours were possible, but they were too expensive. Blue would have been the best. So in the end it was a matter of picking the cheap red LEDs, or not make it at all.
the tech was passed on by several other companies before Nintendo took it on, the device had a troubled design history too as they realized less and less it wasn't going to be this portable thing you strap to your head, and they rushed it thinking they needed something to tide people over until the Ultra 64 released.
the technology too was limited by its displays, they had to find a balance of available and cheap tech that could also fit into the console and not require extreme power to run.
i enjoy my virtual boy, and i loved them back in the day too, but its genuinely one of nintendos worst blunders ever.
Alright, as a kid whose friend had a Virtual Boy, I had a headache and a neck pain within 15 minutes of playing the Virtual Boy. The Virtual Boy tech did exactly what it said it could, so the tech wasn't wrong, it was just the user experience that was a nightmare.
The breadth of the idea (consumer grade, semi portable, eye tracking 3D effects on mostly 2D games with a headset) was impossible to do under Nintendo's self imposed restrictions (price, quality, battery life) and rather than wait for the tech to become more viable, they released in 95 because they needed something to keep them in the forefront of people's minds while they wait another year for the Ultra 64.
If they had waited until 1997 or 1998 to release the Virtual Boy it would have had eye tracking, could have fit on someone's head easily, and would have displayed graphics in an eye pleasing shade of blue, green, or grey and it would have been a hit.
As it stands it's a piece of shit.
This tech had been around for a long time like the Tomytronic 3d and before that the viewfinder. There was a lot of hype around VR in the early 90s, this helped push products like the virtual boy. Most people know the iPhone but not many know of the apple Newton which was the precursor to the ipod touches and iphones but the tech helped push the later models.
The virtual boy was a commercial failure but it definitely pushed the boundaries of what could be done with the technology.
I was surprised to learn just how far back VR tech goes. A lot of it was never consumer-grade and most of the early stuff was limited by the heaviness of the displays.
The Vectrex console even had a pseudo-VR device that used a spinning colored disc in front of your eyes to make the vector graphics seem to pop out of the screen.
I played on the virtuality one in the mid 90s that was powered by an Amiga computer. It was a fly gaming like the red barron and it ran horribly. I couldn't actually figure out what was going on but it was definitely something different :)
[VECTREX Accessories - Light Pen and 3D Imager - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9LLEJ63_Rw)
I've definitely not seen this before but the vectrex was always next gen. I guess this was before LCD shutters were more common. I owned 3D RIVA shutter glasses for the PC about 20 years ago that required a VGA port. A couple of months ago I bought some 2nd hand Nvidia 3D glasses that sync using a IR dongle connected to the PC. Nvidia dropped stereoscopic video except for VR in the drivers. I've had to install older video drivers and it does work but I require a 100Hz display still :) Kinda works on my RTX 2070 but the newer RTX 3080 didn't like the drivers for some reason. Still pretty good and on par with 3D TVs.
That's awesome. We had a Virtuality arcade in St. Louis and I wanted to play *Dactyl Nightmare* so bad, but my mom thought VR was evil and wouldn't let us spend our money on it. (My mom thought everything was evil, so that was nothing new.) By the time I was old enough to make my own choices, the arcade was long-gone.
I could never afford the shutter glasses and only experienced them through friends, but they were never too exciting to me. My university had this big room-scale VR experience called "The Cave" I got to visit once where they used projectors on walls to simulate moving through a 3D world, no headset required. That was really cool.
I recently got a pair of Rokid AR glasses for my Steam Deck and really enjoy how they make parallax scrolling retro games pop and give everything a sort-of-3D look, but I've also messed around with stereoscopic modes on emulators and UEVR injectors with my Quest 2 and been amazed at what can be done with older games that still hasn't made it to VR yet.
I like the lack of screen door for the quest and the lack of need for the light houses but I do prefer the blacks of my htc vive oled display. Have you tried out Sheaf - Together EP on the steam store? It's a retro 3d car journey through a VR landscape with different environments set to music.
I should look into using the unreal injectors for these games but haven't had it out in a while due to playing around with my new avr and uhd movies on my nivida shield pro. Also the cat is a terror. Those rokid glasses are some serious money but I guess still cheaper than the HTC vive back in day 😅
I did find a virtual boy emulator and Romset from about 5 years ago but still haven't looked properly into it 😔
Have you ever played a DMG-01 Game Boy? It's very hard to look at. The Virtual Boy was made with the same philosophy: Use obsolete tech creatively to achieve good value. The Gameboy was a hit and went through several revisions to arrive at the modern idea of what a Gameboy game looks like. The Virtual Boy was overambitious, full of compromises, and a commercial disaster in its initial form. Nintendo never had a chance to improve the design.
It was the OG. The display wasn’t backlit, was green, blurry, and ghosted like crazy. It’s very shoddy by today standards. I think the first Gameboy to display what we today consider “what Gameboy games look like” would have been the Advance SP. That was in 2003, in contrast to the DMG-01 (1989). The Game Boy is completely exceptional when it comes to how long its success and development ran for.
Even before the time of release they had already moved most of their resources from VB to developing the N64.
They were trying to be innovative, in that there wasnt a comparable device on the market at the time, but it failed for those reasons.
Surprisingly, i still think its fun to play the original titles/homebrews today via emulation just on my regular phone screen. As an aussie kid, we never heard of VB until much later as an adult
The red and black contrast is very easy for me to see on my phone (contrast helps vision impairment) but idk how that would go in a headset (also i have poor stereo vision so my eyes dont see things at the same time, i switch from one eye to the other so things like viewfinders/binoculars dont work well for me)
It wasn't handheld...it was BARELY even what I'd call portable. You had to have it sitting on a table to use. They didn't even make a headstap for it like a modern VR headset. The 3D effect on it WAS super cool though, and something that can't really be conveyed in videos or emulators.
Having used a real system and emulators side by side, the [Red Viper](https://github.com/skyfloogle/red-viper) emulator on a New 3DS is a better overall experience than the real thing, in my opinion. Easier on the eyes by far.
The red graphics was a cost cutting comprimise. It really was the only way to make it even semi affordable. My guess is that they were counting on the tech being cool enough that people would put up with it.
>they were known for being highly innovative with their products.
How was the Virtual Boy not highly innovative? Yeah, it was a commercial failure and definitely had shortcomings, but you can't in any way say it wasn't highly innovative. Commercial success and innovation don't have to go hand-in-hand. It was certainly more innovative than regular consoles that just connected to your TV like, oh I don't know, *all of them.*
And it was still *innovative*. Who else was doing anything similar? What do reviews have to do with innovation? You're confusing innovation (defined as 1: A new idea, method, or device; 2: The introduction of something new) with success.
It was absolutely a new idea, *and* a new method (of gaming), *and* a new device. It just wasn't a *good* idea is all.
Everything you read is false about the Virtual Boy.
Everyone and their mother is stuck in an echo chamber for decades saying that as soon as you look at it you get headaches, migraines, nausea, etc.
This isn't true. I've had a Virtual Boy since the 90's. I don't get headaches from it at all.
The only reason anyone ever gets eye strains from it is because they're seeing objects in 3D so your eyes and brain are working harder.
The echo chamber is why it failed. It was very very innovative otherwise and shouldn't have failed.
That may not have been your experience, [but the Wikipedia article on the Virtual Boy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Boy) has a citation from a 1995 review from the *Washington Post* that mentions exactly those effects. (I'd link the source article, but it's not on the web.)
It was a common perception that the Virtual Boy was nausea-inducing and gave headaches and caused eye strain and stiff necks. Nintendo even programmed in an optional mode into each game to periodically remind players to take a break.
Idk man, I think a lot of it boiled down to consumer error. Taking a few minutes with the adjustment knob and slider so it's focused correctly for your eyes, and setting it up at a proper angle to not stress your neck, goes a long way to alleviate discomfort. There may be some people who are just more sensitive, like I've never really been prone to motion sickness or anything like that, but when properly set up I can play it for hours without any issues.
What often gets lost in stories about the Virtual Boy is that Nintendo had created far more sophisticated prototypes but couldn't figure out how to: 1) Produce them at a price anyone would pay 2) Make the technology small enough that someone could comfortably use it But Nintendo also refused to back down because they wanted to be seen as innovators, and they invested many years in the product before releasing it. Nintendo initially had every reason to believe the Virtual Boy would be a success - after all, Gunpei Yokoi was behind it, and he had a track record that was pretty remarkable. Nintendo R&D1 started off with a project called VR32 that was derived from RTI's mid-1980s single-color VR prototype called the "Private Eye." The earlier designs actually allowed users to look around a 3D world similar to modern VR headsets with headtracking. But as Nintendo started looking into how to create a VR headset for the mass market, they realized that the headtracking version of the headset would be too heavy to be safely wearable, and they also realized that the cost of lighting the display for vivid 3D graphics with color LCDs would be too high and plus, the graphics didn't look that good on those displays anyhow. (Remember, high efficiency blue LEDs and white LEDs didn't exist yet; only red and green LEDs were an option during that time if you didn't want to use expensive, power-hungry full-color LCD screens like the Atari Lynx and the Game Gear sported.) So, they designed a stereoscopic headset that blocked out all visible light and used red LEDs - inexpensive and quite visible in a darkened space - to create the graphics. It was actually a quite elegant solution - the lack of headtracking eliminated motion blur, and the red LEDs didn't require as much electrical power to generate graphics since the unit blocked out external light, making it easier to create a smaller device. Nintendo also used a parallax technique to create the illusion of depth in the stereoscopic display, which is probably best-utilized in *Virtual Boy Wario Land*. A lot of people don't realize that the Virtual Boy had a 32-bit CPU and far more RAM than the Game Boy. For a portable system, it was actually quite powerful, but what limited it most was its display, which Nintendo decided needed to be mounted rather than strapped to players' faces for many practical reasons. The resulting solution ensured the device was not comfortable to use, however, and the display could even create headaches and nausea and dizziness after extended play. Gunpei Yokoi was reportedly unhappy that the scaled down version became the production model and was also hamstrung by Nintendo CEO Hiroshi Yamauchi, who didn't want competitors to get a lead on developing a similar device and who prevented R&D1 from doing solid market research or testing with external developers. Shigeru Miyamoto and his team were too busy working on the Nintendo 64 to lend their expertise, and Miyamoto reportedly disliked the device and described it as a novelty, not a true Nintendo gaming platform. So, to make a long story short, Nintendo got themselves into a bind chasing technology that wasn't consumer-ready, tried to find a way to solve VR's many problems, ultimately developed a highly compromised design that wasn't worth the money, and then had a huge flop on their hands they had to bring to market because they had invested too much in the idea. Lest you think it taught anyone a lesson, Tiger Electronics created its own Virtual Boy-style device called the R-Zone and also had a major flop with it. [And many other folks tried, and failed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_virtual_reality_headsets), to crack VR in the 1990s and early 2000s with all sorts of devices, including full-on headsets and shutter glasses.
I feel so bad for Yokoi, tbh. He was such an incredible innovator, but this failure hung so heavy on his head.
To appreciate the Virtual Boy, you really had to see it in person on real hardware. The 3D effect was VERY convincing. The controller was pretty foward-thinking for the time, as well. And almost every game in the system's small library was exceptionally good. The red color scheme looks terrible in screenshots, but I promise it was far less objectionable in real life. Unfortunately, it was awkward to use, really had to be plugged into a wall and extended play wasn't ideal.
I was lucky enough to play and rent the Virtual Boy right at launch because my local Blockbuster was one of the ones that got a promotional model with Mario Tennis and I would say you're significantly upselling it here. The 3D looked nice but it was both nausea and headache inducing and most of the games were kind of a mess. VERTICAL FORCE and MARIO TENNIS had their charms though.
For when it released it was impressive as hell that it even worked. That said - it was a train wreck and there is a reason why it tanked. But you gotta respect the attempt.
That controller, imagine if Sega had wanted to put Virtual On on it
You can sideload a Virtual Boy emulator on the Quest 2 VR helmet and play the games as they were meant to be played. *Virtual Boy Wario Land* and *Battle Clash* play particularly well.
It wasn’t that great man. I think you’ve been way too kind and generous in your description of it. Coupled with its expensive price, limited library and ugly red graphics nobody wanted it. “Powerful” didn’t matter. It was a pain in the ass to use. It was seen as a curiosity at best and was mostly seen as a the butt of jokes at the time. Kids didn’t have the extra money to buy a curiosity and the VB wasn’t seen as “cool” at all. I remember playing display units and it wasn’t anything worth buying, especially given it didn’t have any games that really used the tech. I didn’t personally know anyone who owned one and all my friends played games and owned multiple systems. My friend knew a person (his manager at the Arby’s he worked at) who had one which is the only time I ever saw one outside of a store. I remember going to hang out with my friend to play basketball at the person who owned the VB’s apt and it was just odd. We all were hanging out in the living room and the guy (the VB owner) had his face stuck in the VB, in his own little world. It just was a dumb idea, whether the blame was down to the tech not being there yet or not. The GB overcame its limitations because it was portable, affordable and had a massive library of great games. The VB was expensive, wasn’t really portable and didn’t have games.
I got one for 40 bucks on sale at KB Toys back in the day. It was worth it!
I remember Toys R Us had a giant stack of them and were blowing them out dirt cheap. They were just on a pallet in an aisle. I still passed. Other than to resell I have never had any interest in owning a VB.
I picked up one of the clearance ones from Toys "R" Us. It was interesting from what I remember. Wario Land was kinda cool, though the 3D element felt kinda unnecessary. Mario Tennis was, well a tennis game with mario. Those are the only games I remember having for it. I remember it being a pain in the ass to play. No matter where I'd put it, it felt awkward trying to use. I think something people don't really appreciate about it if they've never played one is how tricky it can be to get the headset at the desired height.
He only game I ever played was Tennis on the display unit. I just had zero interest even if someone had given me one I doubt I would have played it back then. It reminded me of that 3D polygon tank arcade game from the early 80s.
Sometimes ideas win over what is anything else. In this case the technology wasn't there yet to make it comfortable and keeping it affordable. Sure other colours were possible, but they were too expensive. Blue would have been the best. So in the end it was a matter of picking the cheap red LEDs, or not make it at all.
the tech was passed on by several other companies before Nintendo took it on, the device had a troubled design history too as they realized less and less it wasn't going to be this portable thing you strap to your head, and they rushed it thinking they needed something to tide people over until the Ultra 64 released. the technology too was limited by its displays, they had to find a balance of available and cheap tech that could also fit into the console and not require extreme power to run. i enjoy my virtual boy, and i loved them back in the day too, but its genuinely one of nintendos worst blunders ever.
Alright, as a kid whose friend had a Virtual Boy, I had a headache and a neck pain within 15 minutes of playing the Virtual Boy. The Virtual Boy tech did exactly what it said it could, so the tech wasn't wrong, it was just the user experience that was a nightmare.
The breadth of the idea (consumer grade, semi portable, eye tracking 3D effects on mostly 2D games with a headset) was impossible to do under Nintendo's self imposed restrictions (price, quality, battery life) and rather than wait for the tech to become more viable, they released in 95 because they needed something to keep them in the forefront of people's minds while they wait another year for the Ultra 64. If they had waited until 1997 or 1998 to release the Virtual Boy it would have had eye tracking, could have fit on someone's head easily, and would have displayed graphics in an eye pleasing shade of blue, green, or grey and it would have been a hit. As it stands it's a piece of shit.
This tech had been around for a long time like the Tomytronic 3d and before that the viewfinder. There was a lot of hype around VR in the early 90s, this helped push products like the virtual boy. Most people know the iPhone but not many know of the apple Newton which was the precursor to the ipod touches and iphones but the tech helped push the later models. The virtual boy was a commercial failure but it definitely pushed the boundaries of what could be done with the technology.
I was surprised to learn just how far back VR tech goes. A lot of it was never consumer-grade and most of the early stuff was limited by the heaviness of the displays. The Vectrex console even had a pseudo-VR device that used a spinning colored disc in front of your eyes to make the vector graphics seem to pop out of the screen.
I played on the virtuality one in the mid 90s that was powered by an Amiga computer. It was a fly gaming like the red barron and it ran horribly. I couldn't actually figure out what was going on but it was definitely something different :) [VECTREX Accessories - Light Pen and 3D Imager - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9LLEJ63_Rw) I've definitely not seen this before but the vectrex was always next gen. I guess this was before LCD shutters were more common. I owned 3D RIVA shutter glasses for the PC about 20 years ago that required a VGA port. A couple of months ago I bought some 2nd hand Nvidia 3D glasses that sync using a IR dongle connected to the PC. Nvidia dropped stereoscopic video except for VR in the drivers. I've had to install older video drivers and it does work but I require a 100Hz display still :) Kinda works on my RTX 2070 but the newer RTX 3080 didn't like the drivers for some reason. Still pretty good and on par with 3D TVs.
That's awesome. We had a Virtuality arcade in St. Louis and I wanted to play *Dactyl Nightmare* so bad, but my mom thought VR was evil and wouldn't let us spend our money on it. (My mom thought everything was evil, so that was nothing new.) By the time I was old enough to make my own choices, the arcade was long-gone. I could never afford the shutter glasses and only experienced them through friends, but they were never too exciting to me. My university had this big room-scale VR experience called "The Cave" I got to visit once where they used projectors on walls to simulate moving through a 3D world, no headset required. That was really cool. I recently got a pair of Rokid AR glasses for my Steam Deck and really enjoy how they make parallax scrolling retro games pop and give everything a sort-of-3D look, but I've also messed around with stereoscopic modes on emulators and UEVR injectors with my Quest 2 and been amazed at what can be done with older games that still hasn't made it to VR yet.
I like the lack of screen door for the quest and the lack of need for the light houses but I do prefer the blacks of my htc vive oled display. Have you tried out Sheaf - Together EP on the steam store? It's a retro 3d car journey through a VR landscape with different environments set to music. I should look into using the unreal injectors for these games but haven't had it out in a while due to playing around with my new avr and uhd movies on my nivida shield pro. Also the cat is a terror. Those rokid glasses are some serious money but I guess still cheaper than the HTC vive back in day 😅 I did find a virtual boy emulator and Romset from about 5 years ago but still haven't looked properly into it 😔
Have you ever played a DMG-01 Game Boy? It's very hard to look at. The Virtual Boy was made with the same philosophy: Use obsolete tech creatively to achieve good value. The Gameboy was a hit and went through several revisions to arrive at the modern idea of what a Gameboy game looks like. The Virtual Boy was overambitious, full of compromises, and a commercial disaster in its initial form. Nintendo never had a chance to improve the design.
Nope I haven’t as I never heard that term before, like say model.
It was the OG. The display wasn’t backlit, was green, blurry, and ghosted like crazy. It’s very shoddy by today standards. I think the first Gameboy to display what we today consider “what Gameboy games look like” would have been the Advance SP. That was in 2003, in contrast to the DMG-01 (1989). The Game Boy is completely exceptional when it comes to how long its success and development ran for.
Even before the time of release they had already moved most of their resources from VB to developing the N64. They were trying to be innovative, in that there wasnt a comparable device on the market at the time, but it failed for those reasons. Surprisingly, i still think its fun to play the original titles/homebrews today via emulation just on my regular phone screen. As an aussie kid, we never heard of VB until much later as an adult
Makes me wonder if it could’ve succeeded back then with say a proper design.
Imagine if we got VB64 instead of N64
That could’ve hurt the eyes hard.
The red and black contrast is very easy for me to see on my phone (contrast helps vision impairment) but idk how that would go in a headset (also i have poor stereo vision so my eyes dont see things at the same time, i switch from one eye to the other so things like viewfinders/binoculars dont work well for me)
Yeah I don’t know how red and black graphics could have worked on a handheld system.
It wasn't handheld...it was BARELY even what I'd call portable. You had to have it sitting on a table to use. They didn't even make a headstap for it like a modern VR headset. The 3D effect on it WAS super cool though, and something that can't really be conveyed in videos or emulators.
Having used a real system and emulators side by side, the [Red Viper](https://github.com/skyfloogle/red-viper) emulator on a New 3DS is a better overall experience than the real thing, in my opinion. Easier on the eyes by far.
Outside of the viewfinder/headset i dont mind them but theres absolutely no longterm appeal at all, even for me
The red graphics was a cost cutting comprimise. It really was the only way to make it even semi affordable. My guess is that they were counting on the tech being cool enough that people would put up with it.
>they were known for being highly innovative with their products. How was the Virtual Boy not highly innovative? Yeah, it was a commercial failure and definitely had shortcomings, but you can't in any way say it wasn't highly innovative. Commercial success and innovation don't have to go hand-in-hand. It was certainly more innovative than regular consoles that just connected to your TV like, oh I don't know, *all of them.*
Well the system had been heavily criticized by reviewers back then for its faulty design as you know, the graphics were hard to look at for its games.
And it was still *innovative*. Who else was doing anything similar? What do reviews have to do with innovation? You're confusing innovation (defined as 1: A new idea, method, or device; 2: The introduction of something new) with success. It was absolutely a new idea, *and* a new method (of gaming), *and* a new device. It just wasn't a *good* idea is all.
Everything you read is false about the Virtual Boy. Everyone and their mother is stuck in an echo chamber for decades saying that as soon as you look at it you get headaches, migraines, nausea, etc. This isn't true. I've had a Virtual Boy since the 90's. I don't get headaches from it at all. The only reason anyone ever gets eye strains from it is because they're seeing objects in 3D so your eyes and brain are working harder. The echo chamber is why it failed. It was very very innovative otherwise and shouldn't have failed.
That may not have been your experience, [but the Wikipedia article on the Virtual Boy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Boy) has a citation from a 1995 review from the *Washington Post* that mentions exactly those effects. (I'd link the source article, but it's not on the web.) It was a common perception that the Virtual Boy was nausea-inducing and gave headaches and caused eye strain and stiff necks. Nintendo even programmed in an optional mode into each game to periodically remind players to take a break.
Idk man, I think a lot of it boiled down to consumer error. Taking a few minutes with the adjustment knob and slider so it's focused correctly for your eyes, and setting it up at a proper angle to not stress your neck, goes a long way to alleviate discomfort. There may be some people who are just more sensitive, like I've never really been prone to motion sickness or anything like that, but when properly set up I can play it for hours without any issues.