How Nintendo accidentally ruined the Virtual Boy
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- čas přidán 2. 06. 2024
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The Virtual Boy was supposed to be a radically different product. What happened?
#virtualboy #nintendo
0:00 Intro
0:38 Unexpected origins
2:46 The COMDEX fail
4:12 Pitching to Game Companies
8:03 The limitations of the present
10:22 Meanwhile, in Yamauchi-Land
11:24 Release
Events slightly adjusted or exaggerated for narrative (or dramatic) purpose.
Video en Español: • El casco de VR que Nin...
Credits
Research and Writing: LowSpecAlex, F4mi
Voice over: LowSpecAlex
Editing: Henrique von Buren, LowSpecAlex
3D animation: Windy
Art: Maiku no Koe
Spanish Translation, Audio editing and QA: Henrique von Buren
Camera work: LowSpecAlex
Thumbnail design: Maiku no Koe
Source:
www.fastcompany.com/3050016/u...
Social media:
/ lowspec_gamer
/ thelowspecgamer
Music by Epidemic Sound: epidemicsound.com/creator
Stock Footage from Getty - Hry
I didn't know that the virtual boy was a child of the private eye lineage. That's neat. My dad had a private eye from his work. It basically sat in a box of junk for years after going through the demo.
WHAAAAAT? He has one of the dev kits? Does he still have it???
I hope it's still in that junk box somewhere.
you've got a treasure just sitting in a pile of junk
If you can still find it you should take some pictures. You can reach me at alex@lowspecgamer.tv
Not a lot of those dev kits were made!
Hey, why did you delete the rest of your videos@@LowSpecGamer
I had no idea it could’ve been easily head-worn were it not for overzealous legal department.. oh no! Poor Yokoi.
I grew up with the Virtual Boy and loved it. Sadly my mom gave it away when I was still very young and I was so mad. As an adult, I bought two along with every title that came out for it along with unreleased and homebrew ones capable of multiplayer, something that was never a thing officially.
I got mine for Christmas when they first came out, and I loved it. I've always been hooked in by gimmicky game tech, usually to my disappointment, but I I loved my Virtual Boy. It was just so different. Teleroboxer is my personal favorite, but Warioland is a ton of fun too.
The virtual boy could have been a game changer if it wasn't rushed. Guess they should have followed that one Miyamoto philosophy.
If i had a quarter for every time Nintendo broke an device that would have set them years ahead of the gaming market place,
I'd have 2 quarters, that's not a lot but weird that it happened twice
Rip the power glove and Virtual boy original concepts
Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but from what I know the PowerGlove was not made by Nintendo, nor did they design it. And it was actually designed in a mere 8 weeks.
@@NaoPbthe power glove was a cost cut version of an advanced prototype that had been worked on for years, but more importantly both it and the virtual boy were mismanaged products that foreigners had pitched to them, and they both failed because of cost cutting and rushed development.
The VB actually has some good ideas, like the cojntroller designed for 3D control with two D-pads. Modern controllers owe a lot to that, and it shows how nintendo can learn from it's mistakes. It's too bad it couldn't be the way it was originally envisioned, though it's real weakness was the games. If there had been a real killer-app it might have been a different story.
And Nintendo forever fears ANY new console/product being labeled "another virtual boy"
Edit: I've actually owned 2 virtual boys. Warioworld (I think that was the name) was awesome and my favorite.
Wasn't the Wii U almost as bad a stinker?
@@kekeke8988No, not even close. It is generally considered a 'failure', but it did make a profit longterm. It also gave them a big library of games that most fans had never had the chance to play. They ported most of them to the Switch as a low cost way to sell more full-price titles, generating a lot of revenue. By no means a huge success, but it didn't do them much harm in the long run. Nintendo has a good history of being able to pivot their brand and products to cater to whatever changes happen in the market.
The Gamecube is close behind the WiiU in poor market performance, yet most people look back on it very fondly.
This documentaries are the best 😍 I hope you put them together in a supercut with all the history of Gameboy from the original dmg to Nintendo ds
That is the plan. I call it the Yokoi saga.
@@LowSpecGamer Nebula exclusive?
@@LowSpecGamer But the last console developed by Yokoi is the Wonderswan, which is not even by Nintendo
@@LowSpecGamer That's awesome! Will be a hit. Longer videos seem to do better now (at least for me)
Dmg???
Some folks talk about how different your channel was before. I just discovered you yesterday and I think the content it's amazing and I love it, unbeknownst to me how it was before.
Google Glass actually did materialize into a product! Just not for an ordinary consumer. They sold these devices to corporate, Ford uses them at some assembly plants for example.
Are you sure you're not talking about Microsoft HoloLens, as Google Glass is defunct now?
I knew a guy back in middle school who brought one to PE class one day, and I got to try it out. Boy was the screen so TINY and forced me to cross my eyes just to focus on it
@@johnmidwest5650 they are/were out there in several factories after a slight rework under the name Glass EE/Enterprise Edition. Don't know about Ford production lines specifically but both Ford and GM did trials - the latter only a couple of years ago
@@norgeek Were. They've stopped using them. The benefits simply didn't present themselves and folks found them clunky and awkward. We have other/simpler systems that we're using now.
The Virtual Boy was so advanced that to this day, people who tried it on still think that they ever took it off.
When this was released, the gaming press was much different than today.They were not so critical of products and most of the time tried to be softer with their criticisms.I remember magazines downplaying its flaws and being positive for the device's future.A failure from Nintendo was unthinkable.People were still using 8 bit computers and devices and this was a 32 bit RISK product.Surely it was the way of the future.
When i first tried Virtual tennis on a shop, for a limited time,I was amazed! Can you imagine going from 8 bit Nes to stereoscopic 3d graphics? The rest is history :)
When I first saw the demo of the PC game Decent (in Sears of all places) that was my ah-ha! moment of what the future held for games. It was 1995 and at home I still had an 8 bit Sega Master System. Going from that (as good as the Master Systems graphics were) to a pc driven virtual 3D world was light years in difference. I credit that experience to sparking my love of technology. I was 11 at the time. Computers were $3500 - $5500 at the time for a basic tower.
I wonder where vr would be today if they had managed to pull off the original oculus quest like concept.
I mean, it still would've had Mario bros. Arcade and Tetris 3D as launch titles. Most 3rd parties would've wanted nothing to do with it
Well, more specifically, I think a head tracking feature might have been all that they needed to make it successful. Sure, it's not virtual reality, but the line between 3d and VR is pretty blurry. I have a VR headset, and you can still see the edges of the screen in your periferal. So, the virtual boy's screen is just somewhat smaller (I have one of those too). So, is it 3d plus head tracking that makes it VR? In that case, it was really stupid not to build in head tracking, especially with a name like "VIRTUAL Boy".
@@derek2593 head tracking probably would've been agonizing with the low refresh rate and resolution of the console
@@kimgkomg Such a pessimist. You must be young. Back in the day, if it could manage 20 fps, it would have been considered very playable, and within the capabilities of technologies of the era.
@@derek2593 Reasonable head tracking in a self contained unit just wouldn't be possible at that time, it wasn't until the late 1990s where MEMS (chip) accelerometers & gyros came out. Not to mention the rest of the limitations.
As a stereoscopic 3D console (sorta a primitive 3DS), the Virtual Boy is actually pretty neat. The 3D effect works quite well, it's just let-down by the fact it's not powerful enough to do polygons, so games always look like more of a diorama. As an actual VR headset... There's a LOT to be desired. No ability to track the player, no motion controls, so the player can't interact using their hands, hell, you can't even wear it!
Love these videos. I liked your old stuff, but this is fantastic! The Video Game historian takes SO LOOOONG between videos and yours definitely scratch that itch.
I had never heard of virtual boy before trying it at a retro game convention in like 08, and I thought it was awesome. I played the tennis game for quite awhile.
It is way better than one would expect
Thank you for your change in video style, I really enjoy it. The video's are amazing.
As many VB related videos as I have watched and you still got lots of new info i've not heard before. This is a really good video.
YEAAAAAHH NEW VID NICE. I remember watching your video on how to make Astroneer run faster once XD You've gone a long way :)
Honestly, with today's technology, I think they could actually make an amazing virtual boy.
nah, VR isn't something you can go bottom-shelf parts for, unless you want to produce absolute garbage.
@@K3vyB it’s not about being the best. It’s about being fun. Nintendo has proved that you just need fun games to keep a console off shelves.
No, stop forcing
I wonder if Nintendo made portable console with big screen that so light, it can be used as a VR device with some conversion kit, and pretty much wearable. I wonder if we can--
OH NO, SWITCH VR EXIST!!! I do wonder if synthetic food cause people to get dementia on early 20th, as people don't realize it's only 5 years ago.
@@jamesmylife6578 Vomit-inducing VR can't be fun, and currently you can't achieve comfortable VR for cheap.
I remember trying VirtualBoy in a KMart. After a few minutes, I barfed the KMart hotdog and slushpup all over the floor. My parents were angry at the electronics floor manager. Later on the news was showing about kids throwing up and the VirtualBoy was dead after launch. :)
Weird. Motion sickness is an uncommon but lingering problem with VR headsets when the display doesn't perfectly sync up with the user's movements, but you obviously weren't moving with it. Maybe frame rate sensitivity? Did you ever have problems with slow or stuttering PC games?
The virtual boy helped push nintendo to a level of irrelevance it took a long time to recover from.
While nintendo really has never done terribly as a company, and in terms of sales, late 90s nintendo was basically cosidered a childs toy.
A lot of this is because of the grittier games (and boy did they look grittier) offered by the PS1. But I remember very well, the virtual boy being a big hyped launch and it was absolutely terrible and no one really cared abotu nintendo as a big player again until the Wii had so much success.
In that time though Nintendo became the absolute master of the handheld with the DS. I think they took what was successful about the DS and expanded on it. Now Nintendo has the Switch. Which is an excellent little console.
Love the illustrations that are a signature of your videos.
Alan Becker? Animator vs. Animation? Crazy world
I lol'd so much at Gunpei Yare Yare Yokoi 🤣🤣
I had a Virtual Boy and it was criminally underappreciated! Games like Mario Clash, Mario Tennis, Wario Land and Teleroboxer were truly good games. IMHO Wario Land and Teleroboxer were straight up excellent so it's a shame most people missed them entirely. You'd be surprised how quickly you forgot about the monochrome display and focus on the depth perception the display enabled. Playing on background layers of the levels was a very noticeable feature that made sense for the console. Teleroboxer for instance was pretty much the PUNCH OUT formula but with quirky robot boxers. It was great once you figured the controls. I do have to admit that most of my family experienced headaches using the thing. (I chalk it up to the neck position required to play) I was not affected despite playing the games for multiple hours so I'm pretty sure it wasn't the display tech itself. The base they added to it was a pain to level on the table as you either sat too low or too high which made for bad posture.
😍
I love these videos so much!
Thank you for your efforts Alex. ❤️
Wow the gaming landscape would have been so different had Yokoi's original vision been delivered. It would have likely been a huge hit and would have paved the way for a much more matured version of our VR today. I think we're finally getting close to VR mainstream adoption but has Yokoi had his way, we'd have already been there many years ago.
I love how the channel is going. Love the new content. But something is bothering me. Do you own Nebula? It was started by Dave Wiskus. Do you have any ownership if not you really should say on the streaming service Nebula instead of saying my streaming service. The way you are saying it makes it sound like you own Nebula and I can't find any documentation that you do. If I am wrong I apologize.
Nebula is owned by its creators. Each creator there owns a small part. Dave is the CEO.
I was there when it was founded too.
hey man i am loving this new content style
Hi low spec have you heard of the new ayaneo handheld using the mendocino amd chip costing only 289$? ETA-prime has a video on it.
Good job on the vid btw
This is My fav channel ever been before !
Didn't know there was so much nuance and reason behind all of the negative aspects of the VirtualBoy.
Grabbed a VB recently on ebay, and have absolutely loved every second of it. I can see why it didn't do well, there are glaringly obvious problems and oversights with the engineering of the device, but for the time, especially looking back? Holy moly what a feat of tech. Nintendo R&D at some of it's most creative, for better or for worse.
I have met a nintendo secretary there in Kyoto nintendo HQ. Amazingly many Japanese people wait outside the HQ. Just to speak to an employee of Nintendo.
I had a virtual boy that I got for $20 at target on clearance with my allowance. I then scooped up any game I could find for it. I absolutely loved it. It was cumbersome to take with me places (yet I remember playing the wario game in many waiting rooms) but was so much fun. I loaned it to a friend and sadly never got it back. I’m sure I’d hate it now but it was one of my favorite devices as a kid. I could never understand how it failed, though it became clear once I was an adult and this video explained it all so well!
It was crisis at Nintendo!
please keep these videos coming !!!
Absolutely LOVED this style of videos
These videos show me that Yamahuci just launches handheld consoles out of spite
So you really did stop with the "how to run games on a potato" type of videos? :(
Man Ill miss those... You were the best channel for that info.
I did a video last year announcing I could no longer do that
I remember seeing this as a playable demo device in toyrsus for a few weeks (months?), and thought it was so cool! Then it disappeared, and for years I would look for it every time I went into that toysrus, always disappointed :( (before I was old enough to realized how old stuff never returns for sale/ as a demo lol).
I remember a demo unit at Blockbuster Video as a kid. It was cool to play around with a little, but I could see why it didn't sell -- especially at the price Nintendo wanted! By '95, we already had a 486 PC at home, and I'd watched my brother play _Wolfenstein 3D_ and _Duke Nukem 3D_ on it, among other games -- and I'd played a few 3D-esque things like _The 7th Guest_ myself.* Even with the VR aspect, it was hard to see how the Virtual Boy's black-and-red graphics could compete with the home consoles of the time.
I wonder how differently I would've seen the Virtual Boy had it been a portable, wearable headset like Yokoi had intended -- and/or if one of Nintendo's A-teams had developed a killer game for it!
* For actual playing, my own tastes ran more toward games like _SimCity 2000_ and _SimEarth,_ and the _Civilization_ series after I'd got _Civ2_ later. Though I did enjoy driving around in _Streets of SimCity,_ and using the course editor and the SC2k Urban Renewal Kit to make my own race courses. ...Even if I never did play through Streets's poor-man's _Interstate 76_ missions like my brother did.
When you play Virtual Boy emulator in VR (on Quest 2) you’ll understand that the product was amazing.
@@feelingafnar8885 It is a million time better.
@@feelingafnar8885 Yeah, it's quite weird! You can see depth between different "layers"
i really like the new format and medium. your art is so expressive and i love how you do faces. never stop!!
Wtf is up with CZcams's algorithm? This video is amazing.
This series is criminally underrated 😭
Great vid! very useful for my paper
all those little art segments make me want a manga for Nintendo's history
I remember renting a Virtual Boy back in the day and the legal notices at the front of the manual made us all think that it was going to damage our eyes if we played it, so we never purchased one.
I had a VirtualBoy. Sold it for about 100 or so a few years ago with about 6 games. I was happy with it. There were some unique games.
Also, not the Virtual Boy controller;
imagine it in purple and you have a GameCube controller!
This video failed to mention the Super Visor project that Argonaut was working on for Nintendo, only to get overruled by Yokoi's VB project.
I was in high school and rented one for a weekend, right after it was released.
I wanted so badly for it to be good. But it was garbage.
There had been a ton of detractors before it was released, but I kept thinking that something this revolutionary couldn't really be appreciated until it had been tried. I was wrong, though, so very, very wrong. I still believe to this day that given more time, it may have turned out better.
I read this comment. Didn't really care if it's good or not, but you'd think, as long as there's some rationale in it you can at least appreciate it for what it is.
But no, it was garbage. Maybe some more time baking in the sun would have made it hot garbage.
Bro where are the old videos they were very helpful 😭😭😭😭
Playlists
@@LowSpecGamer thanks man I like your old videos but love your new videos too keep up the good work !! 😁
Can someone please tell me the name of the opening song?
Humbot - Wave Saver
I HAVE A CLASS OUT ON NEBULA: nebulaclasses.com/lowspecgamer
Viewers on Nebula is how everyone working on these videos gets paid. THANK YOU.
Some episode notes:
I am not even sure what the thing at 1:08 thing, but it was on the stock footage archive around the same date. Ideally I wanted footage of one of the bulky “portable” computers but did not had access to footage.
The explanation at the start on how the single line LED screens of the Virtual Boy works is an EXTREMELY simplified version of the principle on how a VirtualBoy/Private Eye works. The full explanation falls out of scope for this video and involves mirrors that rapidly move to generate a screen like effect from a single line of LEDs.
An additional reason Sega supposedly rejected the Private eye technology is the nausea a device like this would generate on users due to delays between head movement and reaction. Apparently this was also ultimately the reason why the Sega VR headset did not release, and continues to be somewhat of a problem with modern VR headsets (although much improvement has been made). I have seen no information on how Nintendo feared with these issues on the prototypes, or if they tackled it at all.
The worries about the effects of 3D on the eyes of young kids is something that Nintendo continued addressing with the 3Ds, which also had its fair set of warnings.
I show images of the US VirtualBoy manual, but as far as I understood the warnings where much worse in the Japanese manual and the controversy from the leaked manual was mostly limited to Japan.
Nobody asked this, but the book on 0:54 is One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Whoever makes this shot is versed in irony.
1:49 At that time more like cold cathode tubes
My dad was a very well know reporter from Canada and we took a trip to Japan to try shoshinkai show in Japan and I played the virtual boy for the first time!! My father got to meet Gunpei yokoi and Shigeru Miyamoto, I even have and business card form Gumpei yokoi, that’s the only few thing have left since my father passed away in 2013
Please please upload a picture somewhere. What an experience!
Babe, wake up, new LSG video dropped
I feel stupid going through these comments asking for a Virtual Boy 2-esque console; wasn't that the 3DS? It even managed the portability issue originally designed around, I know some people had issues with it, but I fell head over heels every time that little green "3D" logo on the first gen 3DS lit up. Such a neat little detail I was saddened when less and less games took advantage/fully utilized the concept, I think the last 'fun' 3D game I played was LBX...
We got one back in the Day. i remember playin Mario tennis. I think the VB was the reason my family waited til 2002 to get a N64, that or we were poor
I do love these little documentary breakdowns from history that are very much a welcome addition to so many of the product review videos that we see each day. Sometimes you just want to sit back and enjoy a story, never having to think about getting your wallet out. And of course, presented in a way that keep you watching.
I recently discovered this channel, and I just want to say that I LOVE these kind of videos. I binged every one of this series, and you just do it so well, make it so interesting and I'm learning so much. I can't wait to see what the next video that comes out is about, but I do know that I am eager to learn about tech and gaming history with you.
You are one of the most legit CZcamsrs,
For the algorithm 🍻
What's the live action Zelda commercial/play ?
I still have my virtual boy... The stand broke forever ago... Makes it hard to play lol
God I love your videos
lol what they thought would happen with the virtual boy is what actually happened with pokemon go decades later
what happened with your old videos?
Playlists
I own it used from blockbuster and It was the most fun I ever had gaming. I had 18 games. It fun
I don't remember blockbuster selling videogame consoles
@@TheJunky228 Might have been a clearance sale? After all, if you can get money for a used console, it's better then just chucking it.
1:08 I have one of those! Morrow Pivot!
aww this hurts so much because it turns out that this channel doesn't discuss ultra low graphic games anymore, even though I'm currently looking for ultra low config for mafia definitive edition 😥
Sorry. I quit half a year ago
*Now do a video on the WonderSwan.*
Low spec gamer is from Spain ?
I still blame Nintendo for VR taking so long to come to market. They should have stuck with their original design for it instead of being so scared. Everyone saw the failure of the Virtual Boy and no one wanted to try for a LONG time. Even now major game studios don't take it seriously enough to actually make any good games for them and try to pawn off mods to existing games as "games" look at the terrible versions of Fallout and Skyrim.
And it's come full circle, you can get a virtual boy emulator on the quest, and have the entire library on it. And, it's kinda meh.
WHERE ARE THE OLD VIDEOS
PLAYLIST
Because it burns your eyeballs off. That crap was like getting CS gas gently rubbed into your iris.
I though Gunpei Yokoi left Nintendo because of the Flop of the Virtual Boy I think he made the Gameboy Pocket before working on the Virtual Boy!
*shiny colors*
Why did you delete the old videos?
Not deleted, unlisted. You can find them in the playlist section. It is an algorithm optimization experiment
@@LowSpecGamer thank you so much, love the new content but I like to come back to the old content, it's comfort food :)
I love this new videos
Have to wonder if Nebula is holding this channel back. A channel that has been making videos like this for so long should be getting at least 10x as many views. Maybe the nebula ads and gatekeeping videos behind a nebula subscription is stopping people from sharing and following this channel.
this art is amazing and the narration is so enjoyable too! love what you're doing dude keep it up!!
Yo what happened to your old videos
Playlist
@@LowSpecGamer ah i see,thank u
My friend has one of these
It's migraines inducing
Also: No one has an issue with it being called "Virtual Boy"?!
"Hey bro I just got a virtual boy to entertain myself"--no one on the marketing teem saw anything wrong with this?!
Words fail me. Exemplary. CZcams done right
I've still got mine and play it
I bought a Virtual Boy new and I still have it. I *love* it.
Nintendo is just full of stories!
Cool
I wonder why today's headsets didn't get as much legal backlash as the Virtual Boy did (or maybe they did? I'm not sure)
Because, you know, they actually works. Aside from the usual high prices of course. And Facebook being... Facebook and making things harder for us... Now that I think about it there IS backlage with modern headsets from time to time.
The concern was about liability. Remember that Nintendo products are marketed as broadly as possible, down to kids as young as 3. While devices held in the hand were well understood, something held against your face was a lot more dubious. Without evidence to back up any claims of safety, there was a good reason to fear liability from 3-6 year-olds getting injured by the device, or by unawareness caused by the device. Especially in its original, portable design.
Modern VR devices spell out to the user the need for clear spaces, the danger of unawareness, and in many cases, hard-tether a user to a computer. The electronics are a lighter weight, and don't require such heavy, aggressive EMF shielding. They also have more points of adjustment to ensure the display is focused correctly.
Too this day I till have it😢
Why did you change the title from "The Virtual Boy Nintendo Never Made" to "The Lore of Nintendo's biggest failure"
Fewer people are clicking on the video than I expected so I am experimenting. This is common practice
@@LowSpecGamer I wasn't aware. That's pretty interesting. Best of luck!
So are you ever gonna make videos about other companies products like Sega and Sony?
Yep. It just takes time. I started these months ago
My head hurts.
I love you bro.
Hit after hit after hit
I love your voice and passion
Makes me giggly every time