Omni-Games - Virtual Boy Platform Hub

Virtual Boy

Handheld

Nintendo’s red-and-black leap into 3D, years before the world was ready for it.

Ecosystem: Nintendo
Released: 1995-1996
Generation: GEN-05
Media: Physical

Overview

The Virtual Boy taught players a few things: red is a colour you can get very tired of, a “portable” that sits on a table is still a console, and a game that stops to remind you to take a break probably knows something.

More importantly, the Virtual Boy was Nintendo’s first attempt at true stereoscopic 3D. Designed by Gunpei Yokoi, creator of the Game Boy, it used a pair of red LED displays and an oscillating mirror to draw a separate image for each eye, giving genuine depth without the cost of a colour screen. It launched in Japan in July 1995 and in North America in August 1995 at $179.95, but sales fell far short of expectations and Nintendo discontinued it within a year. It was never released in Europe.

That short life left a small but distinctive library. Mario’s Tennis came bundled with the North American system, Virtual Boy Wario Land showed what the hardware could do with layered depth, and titles like Red Alarm and Teleroboxer pushed wireframe and first-person 3D further than most consoles of the time attempted. Several games were released only in Japan, which makes a complete set one of the most compact, and most challenging, collections in Nintendo’s history.
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