In the life Nintendo I don't think they've ever had something fail as bad as the Virtual Boy. Released on Augest 14, 1995 and discontinued a mere seven months later with only 14 games in it's library, it's safe to say that it failed. Really bad. But is it really as awful as people say? Well yes and no. Also before I go any further I want to say that I actually own a Virtual Boy so I know what I'm talking about.
So what is the Virtual Boy? It was supposed to be a virtual reality helmet type deal. The problem was that most games were from a third person perspective, so basically it was just 3D. But thats just the tip of the failed iceberg. I think where they really went wrong was the fact that it was black and red. Thats all. Just black and red. I suppose you can make the argument that the original Gameboy was in Black and white, But I disagree with this for two reasons.
One. this was supposed to be Virtual Reality!!!!! Life isn't in black and Red!
Two. Gameboy had more of a greyscale effect whereas the virtual boy was just one shade of black and one shade of red.
Still, It's not all bad. The 3D effects are pretty cool and I would say does have some retro appeal now. My final conclusion is it looks worse than it actually is and there are too many people saying how bad it is before they've actually tried it. I would say check it out. It's interesting.
Thanks for Reading :D
wow Virtual boy? Seems to be an awesome game experience!
ReplyDeleteI guess just correcting some things.first off,they actually tried full color lcd's in the making,but they were basicly too blurry and the 3D didn't work right.2nd,actually the dual displays (there are 2 seperate screens,that's how the 3D works)are basicly rows of red led's reflected onto 2 mirrors while the mirrors rapidly vibrate up & down,therefore how the images are drawn,my whole point specificly is that why it's red is that those led's also used the least power at the time.sorry this was so long but just saying. :]
ReplyDeleteP.S i'm a fourteen year old into retro gaming too. :]
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