[Retro] Nintendo Virtual Boy console (1995)

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WARNING: This product MUST NOT be used by children under the age of seven (7) years. Artificial stereo vision displays may not be safe for such children and may cause serious, permanent damage to their vision.

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Titel even aangepast. Het had eigenlijk ook in het centrale Handheld topic gekund maar vanwege de mooie openingspost laat ik hem maar open.

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Op donderdag 19 juni 2003 08:57 schreef Strolie75 het volgende:

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Het had eigenlijk ook in het centrale Handheld topic gekund maar vanwege de mooie openingspost laat ik hem maar open.

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Helaas heb ik nooit mijn handjes op zo'n apparaat kunnen leggen, want het lijkt me wel een leuk apparaat. Het beeld hiervan is toch monochroom rood en 3D-achtig?

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What's Black, Red, and Bombed All Over?

Nintendo's Game Boy can easily claim to be the most successful electronic gaming platform ever made, and it was well on its way to building this legacy in 1994. But the technology was stale; gamers wanted something more than tiny 8-bit characters rendered in four sickly shades of green. To that end, Nintendo tasked Game Boy creator Gunpei Yokoi with creating a new portable gaming platform. Yokoi agreed, and work soon commenced on the project. The final result would come to be known as Virtual Boy. It would also not be very good.

Virtual Boy was a 3D stereoscopic gaming machine that looked like a large pair of goggles, rather than a traditional handheld machine. The facepiece was supported by two triangular legs, and users had to put their faces up to the visor to peer inside. It turned out that there was no real way to assume this position for any significant length of time without experiencing neck or back fatigue. But hey, we're getting ahead of ourselves.

"Look into me, little boy! Lemme see your eyessss..." As mentioned, the display inside was 3D, and not that wussy fake 3D we all enjoy in games today. This was the real thing, akin to what you might experience at a 3D movie. The 3D effect was created using a technique licensed from Massachusetts-based Reflection Technologies, wherein precisely positioned mirrors would reflect the unit's dual red LED displays into each eye, with each eye getting a slightly different viewpoint. This produced a 3D effect, at least in theory. In this writer's opinion, the effect was rather subtle.

What is quite clear, though, is that the Virtual Boy was an experiment gone wrong that shouldn't have made it past the prototype phase. Besides the obvious ergonomic issues, the strange way in which the hardware abused the eyes could cause headaches after extended use. Worse, Nintendo had to include a warning that the unit should not be used by children up to seven years of age -- for fear of damaging their vision! If this didn't set off an alarm bell with someone at Nintendo, what could have? (Further, how was it discovered that it damaged youthful eyes? Hmm.)

Even if a user were to get past the comfort issues and health risks, they would find that most of the small library of games was unremarkable, and that black and red graphics weren't much better than black and white. Toss in a $180 initial price tag (just for kicks), and you end up with Nintendo's biggest hardware fiasco of all time. It was shortly discontinued, and the company is still trying to live it down. When discussing the Virtual Boy episode, "dumb" is not an adequate word.

Ben: Sad subscript: Yokoi, typically regarded as Nintendo's most accomplished engineer, was forced to resign thanks to the Virtual Boy debacle. A few years later he was hit by a car and killed, an event that quite possibly would not have occurred if not for the Virtual Boy's failure and his subsequent forced retirement. (The day of the tragedy, I imagine he would have been enjoying a relaxing lunch with Miyamoto, exchanging anecdotes about the SuperFX chip.) So, the Virtual Boy is not only a misbegotten mess of a game machine, it's a vicious and diabolical little thing that helped rob the world of the creator of Metroid and Kid Icarus. I mean, Jaguar sucked, but at least it didn't kill people.

ferricide: I'm one of the biggest supporters of Virtual Boy I know, which boils down to saying stuff like, "Yeah, it's godawful, but it's hilarious." I still have fond memories of lying in my room with the lights off playing Red Alarm and listening to Kraftwerk. And, the Japan-only V-Tetris is my favorite version of that hallowed game. From the funky '60s fonts, to the insane clowns, to the beautiful and haunting melodies, it's the reddest and most immersive rendition of Tetris ever created. I don't agree that the 3D effect is subtle, but when I stuck my head in front of those crazy screens for the first time I realized that it was, more or less, a pixelated, animated, and utterly red version of View-Master. Not so hot.

hardcore_pawn: I became extremely adept at balancing my Virtual Boy across my eyes while lying on a couch in a darkened room. Sad, I know. However, one side effect that I never banked on when I handed over my hard-earned dosh for the red devil was the mind-crippling headaches that I received from my extended playing time. Maybe it was the glue I was sniffing in my parent's garage, but maybe, just maybe, it was the "eye-friendly" red glow of 3D Mario Tennis on that cursed little device. I don't care that the system bombed; I don't care that people wasted money on it; but I do care that my 20/20 vision went south for the winter the first time I used a Virtual Boy. Oh, and all the games sucked.

Fargo: My eyes!

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Op donderdag 19 juni 2003 09:13 schreef Patvs het volgende:
De Virtual Boy is geen HAND-HELD>. en verdient z'n eigen topic..

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Maar ik liet hem toch al open.

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Op donderdag 19 juni 2003 09:13 schreef Patvs het volgende:
De Virtual Boy is geen HAND-HELD>. en verdient z'n eigen topic..

(De Sega NOMAD eigenlijk ook., maar dat is een ander verhaal.)

Yep.. (rood/zwart monochroom..) ik snap nog steeds niet precies hoe dat 3D effect wordt bereikt.

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Het wordt onder andere hier wel heel goed uitgelegd.

http://dana.ucc.nau.edu/~dbt/VB3D.html

En ze zijn vrij handbaar hoor onderweg. Ik had er laatst een mee in de trein (met een battery-pack kan je een paar uur draadloos spelen)
Als je dacht dat mobiele telefoons irritant waren in de trein (of piepende gameboys) had je dit moeten meemaken.. (toen ik 3D BOWLEN ging spelen mee vrij hoog volume..)

Ik heb nu drie Virtual Boys..

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Wat zou ik moeten bieden om er een in mijn bezit te krijgen?

Ik heb daar eens meegedaan aan een basketbaltoernooi op een half veld. Ik speelde met 2 brazilianen tegen overwegend japanners.... Onnodig te zeggen dat we door het lengteverschil eerste werden

De hoofdprijs waren drie Virtual Boys, ik heb de mijne later geruild met een tweedeprijs winnaar. Die kregen een gouden GameBoy met blauwe (!) displayverlichting. Deze heb ik nog steeds, en ik vind hem nog steeds Übercool

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Op donderdag 19 juni 2003 13:58 schreef thumper het volgende:
De hoofdprijs waren drie Virtual Boys, ik heb de mijne later geruild met een tweedeprijs winnaar. Die kregen een gouden GameBoy met blauwe (!) displayverlichting. Deze heb ik nog steeds, en ik vind hem nog steeds Übercool

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Op donderdag 19 juni 2003 13:59 schreef Notorious_Roy het volgende:

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Foto !

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Op donderdag 19 juni 2003 13:59 schreef Notorious_Roy het volgende:

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Foto !

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Op donderdag 19 juni 2003 14:06 schreef thumper het volgende:

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[offtopic]
Ik kan zo gauw geen images vinden op het net, maar het blijkt een gouden GameBoy Light te zijn, qua formaat komt deze overeen met de GameBoy Pocket
[/offtopic]

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[Dit bericht is gewijzigd door thumper op 19-06-2003 14:38]

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Op donderdag 19 juni 2003 15:17 schreef Zooi het volgende:
Hoewel ik eigenlijk al weer bijna vergeten was hoe het oude model eruit zag, vind ik dat best een geil dingetje. Is die alleen bij die Jappen uitgekomen?

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Op donderdag 19 juni 2003 15:19 schreef thumper het volgende:

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Voor zover ik weet is de Virtual Boy alleen in Japan en de VS uitgekomen ja...

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Op donderdag 19 juni 2003 15:23 schreef Zooi het volgende:

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Ik doelde eigenlijk op die golden light versie. .
Logisch de verwaring aangezien dit topic eigenlijk over de VB ging.
Mijn excusses voor het enigzins offtopic gaan. .

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