Description

The Virtual Boy was a console that worked as a 3-D headset, the console’s screen was only capable of the colour red to reduce the price. Nintendo claimed it would "totally immerse players into their own private universe", in reality the console was difficult to use as many people suffered from motion sickness while using it, including people who were not prone to it. In North America the console came with Mario’s Tennis, the first game in the Mario Tennis series and despite the general problems with the 3-D the game was helped by it as it was easier to detect the ball. The console’s release was rushed because Nintendo wanted to focus all their resources on the Nintendo 64 and this meant the console was not as powerful as promised. Upon release the Virtual Boy was widely disliked with critics calling it a novelty and criticizing it for its lack of games, there were no Zelda or Metroid games released for it and the Mario games released for it were targeted at a more niche audience than the games that did well on the SNES and Game Boy. The publication TechWeb speculated that using the Virtual Boy could cause permanent brain damage. The console’s creator, Gunpei Yokoi left the company after 31 years to found his own company and created his own handheld called the Wonderswan which led a lot of people to assume he was forced out the company but he stated that he planned to leave the company years ago. The console was discontinued after a year with only 770000 units sold and no European release.