With the Nintendo 3DS fervor of late, does that mean the Virtual Boy wasn’t technically a failure, but a gadget before its time?
Personally, I think the widely accepted answer to that question may be that the technology was poorly executed (headaches!) and the idea of it was sound, but it was simply too early to be widely accepted by the masses.
The 3DS, for me, shows we’re “ready” for 3D in the video games space. Glasses-free 3D, that is. Thoughts?
Of all of the amazing 3DS demos Nintendo showed at E3, one of the most overlooked was a 3D port of the classic arcade shooter Xevious. It featured no new graphics or gameplay elements, levels, or power-ups – it was a direct simple port of a definitively 2D game, slightly tweaked for depth perception. The result? The game looked a little more fresh – the ground far below the aircraft… actually looked quite far away. A very simple tweak to a classic game lent it a new dimension – perceived altitude.
Xevious stands with Ocarina of Time and Starfox 64 as an example of something the 3DS is poised to be very good at – breathing new life into old games. Although a novelty to be sure, the added depth perception brings an excitement to games that may have grown mundane to long-time gamers. Aforementioned titles excepted, what classic Nintendo games should receive the 3D treatment? There are three major categories the Big N needs to cover to warm fanboy hearts:
Is the Nintendo Virtual Boy one of the worst inventions ever created by mankind? Probably not. But it makes for great fodder (and headache jokes), as brought to you by Time. Not to mention it was a miserable gaming failure:
The Virtual Boy will go down as Nintendo’s most short-lived system, staying on the market for just six months in 1995 before being mercy-killed… It was expensive (retailing at $180) and came with a limited slate of games (only 14 were ever available in the U.S.)—Top 50 worst inventions
