Twenty years ago, much like today, I was a huge Nintendo fan. I remember scouring the pages of Nintendo Power magazine and coming across some early concept screenshots for what would be possible with the Virtual Boy. Back then virtual reality was a thing of childhood dreams, so the Virtual Boy had my attention from the start.
It really is a shame that Nintendo hasn't re-released the Wario Land Virtual Boy game on 3DS. As awful as that "portable" system is, I remember that Wario land game being surprisingly decent.With game developers & pundits seemingly lining up to try to shove VR down our throats again (regardless of whether anyone actually wants VR games), it is funny to think back on the spectacular failure of the virtual boy and consider how few of the problems of the medium as a commercial product have been addressed since then.
Remembering Nintendo’s Virtual Boy
In 1995 Nintendo became one of the first gaming companies in the world to mass produce a system geared towards virtual reality. The Virtual Boy was positioned to be a game-changer in the mid-1990s due to the technology being so new and untapped at the time. Virtual reality was a buzz word and films of the time were treating it like the next stage of human evolution, and there was a large market full of consumers eager to try out the technology for themselves. They were in for a shock.
While the dismal commercial performance of the Wii U has made headlines recently, it's a long way from being Nintendo's most famous failure - that unwelcome accolade falls to the Virtual Boy, which sold around 770,000 units globally back in the '90s. The console is blamed not only for ending Gunpei Yokoi's tenure with Nintendo but also for poisoning public opinion on virtual reality. However, a recently-published and in-depth investigative piece by freelance journalist Benji Edwards reveals that many of the assumptions surrounding this flawed platform are false - and that its history is perhaps more interesting that many other consoles.
In 1986, Becker formed Reflection Technology, Inc and the device was given a fancy new name: Private Eye. Predating the likes of Google Glass by many years, the technology was shown off at various trade shows but no progress was made on turning it into a viable, selling product - until the virtual reality boom happened.
It would not be surprising if some people, accustomed to 2D games, were made uncomfortable at their first contact with a 3D virtual environment. The early days of 3D video games sure were a big change over the simple 2D visuals that don't have the slightest chance of tricking our brain and senses. But the subject has not been treated well back then, we might never know.
Virtual Boy from what i recall was marketed pretty well, most department stores had demo kiosks and it certainly was well known to of existed. A lack of compelling IP hurt it, even more so did concerns over it's practicality and potential to cause sickness/eye strain, but most of all the red and black scheme didn't feel as impressive as most expected virtual reality to be. As 3D graphics were becoming a thing the virtual boy actually felt like a step back to most people. I certainly wasn't impressed and recall "not getting it" in terms of what made it impressive or compelling.
And how did it do in the end? Remembered as one of Nintendo's most catastrophic failures - it failed to reach a million sales in its short time on the shelves - the Virtual Boy has at least earned some cult appeal in the intervening years. It would be tempting to say the device was ahead of its time, especially from the perspective of an era when commercial virtual reality units have finally made their way into the living room, but in truth the Virtual Boy was too compromised, too underdeveloped and not supported anywhere near enough by a Nintendo that already had its eyes on the N64 to be anything other than a flop. A curio, then, and nothing more.
I recently did a tour of a game company that focused on virtual reality. To me, it seemed they were capitalizing on what was trendy. Is anyone buying a $1600 computer, an $800 VR headset, and the extra peripherals to play a VR Solitaire game? I would venture unless it comes bundled with the headset- no.
A theory is that humans are particularly bad at remembering scents. Thus, we place lesser value in it. Though my girlfriend realized that cupcake candles smell exactly like Fruit Loops, so the research is still out on this one.
The new Nintendo of America subsidiary, having already bet the company's own launch upon its conversion of its failed Radar Scope (1980) arcade game cabinets into the successful new Donkey Kong (1981) arcade game, wanted to debut in the home video game console market using the Japanese parent company's successful Famicom system. But the entire video game industry, which had been virtually abandoned following the devastating video game crash of 1983, first needed a relaunch.
A multi-user, virtual reality environment, MOOSE Crossing lived on a server at MIT in the late 90s. Its creator, a then-doctoral student named Amy Bruckman, had developed it as an exploratory learning tool for children and the basis for her dissertation. The project coalesced at a time when the Net had yet to fully snake its way across America's classrooms, and many teachers and administrators were finding themselves at a loss for how to harness its educational potential.
Let's tune out the onslaught for just a moment and assume that our virtual houseplants, as well as our real ones, will survive without our attention. Not to avert our gaze, but to remember that in order to demand a different reality, we must first allow ourselves to imagine one. 2ff7e9595c
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