![]() Realizing these challenges, Nintendo built its strategy for marketing the Virtual Boy around getting as many people as possible to try the hardware. It's a success story that's being copied by the other industry players with their upcoming motion-control devices (Sony with PlayStation Move and Microsoft with the Kinect for Xbox 360). ![]() With the Wii, Nintendo deliberately went with a concept that would make people gather around the television and want to try the games. It's the opposite dynamic from the one at play in the Wii, the game console with the revolutionary motion controller Nintendo released in 2006. ![]() In sharp contrast, when you look at a Virtual Boy player, all you see is the back of their head. When you play a videogame on a screen, people can gather around and watch you play, often making them want to try it themselves. Quite frankly, in the context of a magazine or TV spot, the red-LED graphics looked just plain bad.īut this wasn't the only problem. Game trailers on television didn't convey the experience well. Due to the nature of the graphics, it was difficult to actually show screenshots in print magazines, which in 1995 was the primary way the vast majority of game enthusiasts learned about new products. Nintendo faced a serious marketing problem with Virtual Boy. It was tough to get the word out about these games, though. But in the end, you were still playing videogame tennis, which was kind of old and boring by then and wouldn't come back into vogue until 2006. You'd play the packed-in game Mario's Tennis and the ball would zoom up toward your face, then zoom out into the distance. We were all still playing Game Boys – with their monochromatic, greenish puke screens – so it's not like the Virtual Boy's crimson glare posed a huge mental hurdle. I'd played it a few times Nintendo set up display units on the countertops of just about every electronics store in my admittedly limited travel radius, and I'd played the launch games.Īnd, you know, it was pretty cool. But when Virtual Boy launched in August at $180, I was quite sure I didn't want to bother. I even had a lifetime subscription to Nintendo Power. I already owned a Nintendo, a Super Nintendo, a Game Boy and a Game Boy Pocket. If you want an even more damning example, try this on for size: At 15, I didn't even want one. Prominent game critic and historian Steven Kent called it the "Virtual Dog," and that was a succinct summation of the tenor of the press coverage. Nintendo took the veil off Virtual Boy at its Shoshinkai trade show at the end of 1994, and reaction from the press was swift and furious.
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