Nintendo Virtual Boy

Summary

In the early 90s, Game Boy creator Gunpei Yokoi became interested in a method developed by American company Reflection Technology for producing stereoscopic images using red LEDs. Under his leadership, Nintendo developed the idea into the Virtual Boy. The console offers stereoscopic graphics, but suffered as Nintendo devoted more resources to the Nintendo 64, which was being developed at the same time.

The Virtual Boy is becoming the largest disaster in Nintendo’s recent history. It’s too expensive, the red-black graphics look outdated, it’s neither really mobile nor a really stationary console, and the virtual reality aspect mediated by the name, which was fashionable at the time, is misleading – the Virtual Boy doesn’t have any motion sensors, but is a cumbersome pair of 3D glasses.

After only seven months and about 770,000 units sold, Nintendo takes the console out of the market again. 22 games are released worldwide.