"I don't recall anybody literally throwing up in the office..."

August 21, 2015 7:22 AM

Twenty years ago, on August 21, 1995, Nintendo released the Virtual Boy in North America. The stilt-legged tabletop gaming console, which offered a unique red stereoscopic 3D display, attempted to ride a wave of popular interest in virtual reality. It was a risky, innovative gamble for Nintendo that didn't pay off, leaving many to wonder why it existed in the first place.

Unraveling The Enigma Of Nintendo's Virtual Boy, 20 Years Later
posted by griphus (11 comments total)

What a sad story all around.
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:00 AM on August 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

My local Blockbuster had one set-up in the store when it came out. I took a look at it. Thought it was...interesting...but my gut told me there wasn't a bright future for it.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:15 AM on August 21, 2015

Where others saw deficiency in the Private Eye's red-on-black display, the creative mind of Gunpei Yokoi saw a completely unexpected advantage. What struck him most about the Private Eye display was its capability to immerse a player in perfect, complete blackness. In this way, he conceived of the display as a way to project infinite depth.

So you have a display optimized for showing people infinite depth caves, designed by the guy who created Metroid, yet these two things never came together?
posted by pwnguin at 9:13 AM on August 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

I remember seeing one of these set up in my local Software Etc. (RIP), and I pretty much instantly knew it would bomb. The eye and neck strain were big red flags.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 10:13 AM on August 21, 2015

In the second wave of Pokemon games, you can get a Virtual Boy as a room decoration. Those games were released just five years after the VB, but I had never heard of the durned thing at the time. It really sailed straight into obscurity after its short life.

My life is richer, however, knowing that the FaxView was a thing, a device using the same technology as the VB to view pixellated red copies of faxed documents.
posted by Gordafarin at 10:37 AM on August 21, 2015

We send and receive an inordinate amount of faxes for a business in 2015 so I've been trying to think up of ways to get my boss to let me expense a FaxView for the office.
posted by griphus at 10:38 AM on August 21, 2015 [3 favorites]

I managed to get a Virtual Boy for Christmas the first year it came out.

I broke the stand on the first day, rendering it largely unplayable.

Metaphor?
posted by SansPoint at 10:40 AM on August 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

Also it is slightly reminiscent of the Atari Jaguar molds being sold to a company that makes dental cameras.
posted by griphus at 10:40 AM on August 21, 2015 [4 favorites]

I really enjoyed the Virtual Boy. I used to lay down on the couch and prop it up on my head to play. Eventyally the pixels on the thing started dying out and I got rid of it.
posted by Hicksu at 2:30 PM on August 21, 2015

Yeah, the proper way to play a Virtual Boy is to lie on your back on the floor or couch and just plop the goggles down on your face and hold the controller over your torso.

You'll still get tired of playing it, though.
posted by loquacious at 2:41 PM on August 21, 2015

My life is richer, however, knowing that the FaxView was a thing, a device using the same technology as the VB to view pixellated red copies of faxed documents.

Also it is slightly reminiscent of the Atari Jaguar molds being sold to a company that makes dental cameras.

The Panasonic/Matsushita M2 console was supposed to launch around the same time as Sony's Playstation. Instead they turned them into coffee vending machines.
posted by dances with hamsters at 8:40 PM on August 21, 2015 [1 favorite]