At the heart of Yokoi’s design philosophy lay a concept he called “lateral thinking with withered technology.” Yokoi’s design philosophy can be summarized as an approach that emphasized finding novel uses for existing, inexpensive technology. His philosophy arguably runs counter to conventional game industry wisdom where newer, flashier, cutting-edge technology is (assumed) better.
I think this is still Nintendo’s philosophy. I see a lot of people complaining that the Switch is “outdated hardware” compared to PlayStation and Xbox, not understanding that they’re not trying to make the same thing.
Moreover: Nintendo is a toy company. They seek novelty, which is why they keep doing goofy shit. That’s why the Switch has detachable controllers and motion-control nonsense instead of being baby’s first Steam Deck.
The fancy description is “blue ocean strategy.” They don’t want to compete. They want to be the only company that offers [blank]. They want to sail off to some unexplored territory and be the only one there.
It was supposed to be a lightweight head-mounted affair. The original tech was a portable fax reader for executives on long flights… because the 1980s were like that. Nintendo built a whole new factory just in time for Japanese safety regulations to get stupid. They had to lock everything down and then plaster the box in warnings or they’d be blamed for absolutely anything children did while wearing their electric blindfold. (Edit: Okay, yeah, this article also covers that.)
If that liability nonsense had happened earlier, Nintendo could’ve pivoted to a standalone device that made more sense than a not-quite-headset on little stick legs. Something with a CPU that wasn’t designed to run on batteries. Maybe a stereo microscope affair, with arcade buttons on the heavy base. Unfortunately the hardware and software were too far along to fix much. They did their best and it wasn’t nearly enough.
I’d genuinely love to see someone hack together a sensible version in either direction. Either a lightweight-by-90s-standards headset (with no head-tracking whatsoever) or a handsome compact tabletop affair. Some one-off glimpse of what might have been.
Interestingly the machine did okay in the US. Nintendo of America opposed its discontinuation, arguing it could become profitable if given time, but Nintendo of Japan wasn’t doing any of that Sega shit. NoA exists as a PR firm. They don’t make decisions unless asked.
What the Ars article bodges in its final paragraph is the implication Yokoi retired because of the Virtual Boy. Quite the opposite: it was supposed to be his final gift to Nintendo. He wanted to get back to making proper toys. The VB was a finale, a send-off, something that might mirror the success of the Game Boy and give Nintendo a whole new market for years to come. Which obviously did not work.
It’s okay, though. His apology was to stick around a little longer and crank out the Game Boy Pocket just in time for some second-party game called Pocket Monsters.
If you’ve got a modded 3ds, Red Viper works extremely well to emulate Virtual Boy games, if you’re curious about them. Arguably it’s a better experience than playing them on a Virtual Boy.
It takes a bit of time for the controls to click, then all of a sudden you just catch a rhythm and it’s second nature.
Happened to me the first time I beat the self-destructive guy. Having to go for speed just made everything click and from that point it was all learning strategy, controlling what I wanted the game to do was no longer an issue.
It’s just night vision. There’s no green or blue light, so your eyes adjust like you’re in a dark room. (Or a darkroom.) Then it nags you to take a break, and you sit back up into an eyeball-searing fluorescent-lit room… in your case, with neon blue carpet and yellow signage. You flashbanged yourself.
I loved my virtual boy when I was a kid. It felt like the future or something. It didn’t have a lot of great games, but I did get most of the best ones when blockbuster video started clearing out their inventory and sold games for like $5 each.
I somehow ended up with 2 of these things in my collection. I have a consolizer mod kit for one, that I still need to install. Additionally, I managed to nab one of those everdrive-like carts that displays the label of the ROM in e-ink.
I think this is kind of a thing for a lot of stereoscopic 3d technology.
I could play the virtual boy, 3ds, watch 3d movies, etc. for hours without issue, and other people can’t take it at all.
I don’t know what factors play into that, maybe it’s genetic, maybe there’s some kind of skill/technique/habits about how you focus your eyes, or how often you blink, maybe it’s just luck of the draw that your pupil distance is just right or wrong. Maybe it comes down to something ridiculous like how many hours you spent trying to make sense of Magic Eye books when you were a kid.
I, for one, loved this thing. And the only reason I was ever able to own one was because of their downfall also coincidentally happening about the same time EB Toys was going out of business, so I was able to get the Virtual Boy and most of the games for under $50 due to the extreme discounts.
That’s literally how I got mine, though from Babbages when they were still a thing. I think I paid like $35 + tax for the unit (which came with Mario Tennis) and Wario Land.
Loved it, but I can see why it failed. Still, 3D Mario Tennis was amazing.
The virtual boy is Nintendos coolest console that deserved to fail. It had some good games in it’s tiny library. It brought some cool concepts to the project. But the virtual console deserved to die.
Yeah, it was a cool concept, but the execution was terrible. For all its faults, the one I can’t overlook is the fact that it required 6xAA batteries (that it would chew through in 2-3 hours). LIke, WTF? Its design literally required you to use it on a table/stationary location. They sold an AC adapter for it, but it was a separate purchase.
Yeah I remember a friend got one for Christmas and we all went over to play with it at a sleepover and it just sucked down all the batteries in the house.
Was it? The one I remember clipped onto the back of the controller in place of the battery box. Or did it have a power port on the unit itself ?(it’s been forever lol)
My OG Game Boy had a 6v DC input on the side. My off-brand rechargeable pack for it plugged in there instead of clipping into the battery compartment.
There was an official Nintendo Battery Pack for the Gameboy that used that side input, too. It plugged in with the same 2-prong cord that my sister’s mini boom box used.
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