It's not that hard to figure out why the Virtual Boy was a market failure. It had so many headwinds at launch the biggest mystery is why Nintendo thought it would be a success.
It's a portable that isn't portable. It combines the worst of both worlds by being a battery eater while also being too big to fit in your pocket and needing a table to play it on. It's clear the original idea was to put a head strip on the thing so you could wear it, but concern about kids falling into open manholes killed the idea. They were also way ahead of their time on the technology front, so you got the expensive and fragile moving parts that ended up providing only a lame low resolution all red display. The computing power required meant you had to put a high power CPU as well, which meant short battery life. IMHO the box should have come with the AC adapter instead of the battery pack on the controller, not that it would have solved the other issues, but at least it would indicate that it's really a home console not a portable. Probably worst of all it was competing against the Gameboy, a runaway success with an enormous game library that didn't require mandatory nag screens warning about eyestrain.
Ultimately it was a product about 25 years ahead of its time. Even today people are struggling to get VR right.
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[ 0.19 ms ] story [ 10.7 ms ] threadIt's a portable that isn't portable. It combines the worst of both worlds by being a battery eater while also being too big to fit in your pocket and needing a table to play it on. It's clear the original idea was to put a head strip on the thing so you could wear it, but concern about kids falling into open manholes killed the idea. They were also way ahead of their time on the technology front, so you got the expensive and fragile moving parts that ended up providing only a lame low resolution all red display. The computing power required meant you had to put a high power CPU as well, which meant short battery life. IMHO the box should have come with the AC adapter instead of the battery pack on the controller, not that it would have solved the other issues, but at least it would indicate that it's really a home console not a portable. Probably worst of all it was competing against the Gameboy, a runaway success with an enormous game library that didn't require mandatory nag screens warning about eyestrain.
Ultimately it was a product about 25 years ahead of its time. Even today people are struggling to get VR right.