Company chief scientist Benjamin Wells suggested that a major issue was that “ failed to find a killer app for our display.” Inspiration would strike in 1990, as the “virtual reality” fad began to take hold around the globe.ĭactyl Nightmare (W Industries / Virtuality, 1991) Unfortunately, the Private Eye struggled to gain tangible traction in these early years, as the few companies who initially expressed interest in the concept ultimately chose not to pursue further business relations with Reflection. The working name for this invention became the “Private Eye,” and the company would shortly set about pitching a prototype of their device to whichever companies they could get it in front of - presenting it primarily as a “business productivity” device.
The future as he saw it would see users able to wear visor-like peripherals that would feed sharper, brighter visual feedback directly into the retina.
RED ALARM VIRTUAL BOY PLAYTHROUGH PORTABLE
One company that had not been quite as fortunate up to this point, however, was Reflection Technology Inc.: A startup formed by by one Allen Becker in 1986, operating out of Cambridge, Massachusetts.īecker had visions of a future where consumers would no longer be tied to bulky, power-draining portable displays when it came to doing their computing on the go. The Nintendo Entertainment System and Game Boy were the respective kings of the home and handheld console markets, Mario was largely unchallenged as the most recognizable character in all of video games, and the Super Famicom to be released at the end of the year ** was poised to continue their market dominance. Nintendo were in a pretty good spot come the turn of 1990. That said, anaglyph 3D animated GIFs in red-cyan are available to you if you click on any of the gameplay images below. In recording gameplay footage for this article, I used an emulator which rendered the Virtual Boy’s dual displays as overlapping red and cyan layers, which may presumably work if you happen to have a pair of red-cyan-filtered glasses? But I’m stereoblind to begin with, and so I’m not really the best judge of this sort of thing. But over the course of this article, I am going to try my best to give the console a fair shake, demonstrate its range as a games console, and to extol some of its several virtues.ĮDITOR’S NOTE: Obviously, the illusion of 3D is a tricky thing to try and convey here. Look, I’m not gonna tell you “what you think you know about the Virtual Boy is wrong,” or claim that the console was some sort of secret success. But the stories behind failed games and consoles are rarely as cut-and-dry as they are made to seem. Most folk who follow the games industry seem to have no difficulty pointing out “what went wrong” with the Virtual Boy making it look like its issues should’ve been obvious, and that it never stood a fighting chance. The Virtual Boy remains one of Nintendo’s most notable “failures” in the games industry, if not one of the most notorious flop consoles of all time.
In mid-1995, the Nintendo Virtual Boy was released to a public whose enthusiasm for VR was already exhausted, and only for the console to be discontinued within a year’s time. Though this fad would be short-lived, with public and corporate interest beginning to wane by 1994, Nintendo had already committed to plans to bring virtual reality into the consumer living room - potentially even on the go. In the early 90s, there was a brief boom in the field of “virtual reality” technology. And in markets where there isn’t already existing competition, Nintendo dives in headfirst and sets the standards that latecomers will have to try and follow. From the early days of the Nintendo Entertainment System’s “Robotic Operating Buddy” to the core design of the Nintendo Switch of today, Nintendo seems as committed as ever to setting their consoles apart from the competition in non-traditional ways. Wholly immersive virtual art by as a hardware manufacturer is commonly associated with gimmickry - pairing underpowered consoles with novelty controllers or whatever other oddball peripheral have you. “It’s Not Playin’ Around: It’s For REAL!”
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