Topic: Virtual Boy Thoughts

Just yesterday I tested and played Virtual Boy on Switch 2. My God it is soo great! I was really impressed.
Impressed by the whole feeling of 3D space and also I couldnt help it to think about how people were not impressed with it in 1995?!!!

Its sad that this hardware didnt get the games it deserved. I was thinking how many great games we could see in it at that time!

Honestly tech wise it was ok the many problem that held it back was just how uncomfortable it was. Design wise it was definitely something that needed to stay in the oven a bit longer but I understand why Nintendo rushed it out.

As far as games go it had some decent games, the best obviously being Warioland. But Mario Clash was good probably one of my favorites as well as Galatic Pinball (I think thats what it was called) Telroboxer and Red Alarm was good especially if you were a Star Fox fan.

I still have mine to this day, granted it sits somewhere in my storage. Overall it doesnt deserve the hate it got.

It's super cool, just uncomfortable.

I tried making a head strap for the cheaper cardboard goggles but the hard plastic presses into my face and nose, and I haven't solved a way to add cushioning.

I prefer playing in glasses-free 3D on a modded New 3DS. That truly is the definitive Virtual Boy experience. But if you don't have access to one of those or don't want to follow the tutorial to softmod yours, and can figure out a way to use comfortably either sitting at a table or reclining with it resting downward on your face, it's still an option.

WarioLand is good. And when Vertical Force releases I recommend that also. It's a great shmup where you bounce between foreground and background.

I've played around with it for about 5 minutes (got the full headset experience). It's really neat, looking forward to spending some more time with it in the coming weeks. I'm wondering if any games are going to be made that specifically take advantage of it (maybe minus the red)

The modern version has a number of improvements over the 1995 implementation, not least that the LCD/OLED display of a modern device has far greater clarity and virtually no flicker in comparison to a row of LEDs and a moving mirror. Even my DIY modified Labo headset is a lot more comfortable to use too.

If you're wondering why nearly all of its library is games that play at their best in short bursts of five to fifteen minutes, it's because that's about how long most people could last using it. That does rather mean that even the ones that give an initially good impression are likely to fade quickly.

Wario Land is that one true jewel though, that could probably have impressed enough to hold up against the best of its contemporaries, had they put it out on the SNES, or at least the GameBoy.

All in all, it's a historical curio, that I'm very glad that Nintendo haven't just buried out of sheer embarrassment. It makes me wonder if they might consider throwing some light on other obscure side ventures, such as the CDi games.

@Flugen I was impressed. I very much liked the system, but it definitely could have been better.

I think it was a better system than many better selling systems, but it was also expensive and intimidating while a literal pain in the neck.

I'm a bit confused by the Virtual Boy accessory. Prices seem extremely high but it just seems to be a basic VR headset relying on the Switch 2 for its display panel with no active electronics. Yes there are red filters to give a classic Virtual Boy type image but why wouldn't you just buy a Switch 1 or Switch 2 comfortable VR headset instead to use the same software especially if you could add red filters yourself somewhere in the design. Pricing seems outrageous to me. I'd like to see Nintendo take VR a bit more seriously and less gimmicky. It would be great if Nintendo converted just one title to full 1080p 120Hz VR so they could test the water for how much potential VR sales there are. Maybe 3DS mario kart.

@BonzoBanana The price is absurd but they also know that they can put a price near resell values of the actual system and that will lead to sales.

People have lost all sense of what plastic costs.if people are willing to spend 60 on an amiibo then 200 plus for a VB is not absurd.

I love Nintendo first party games mostly but Nintendo pricing is always ridiculous and this generation they seem to be putting the Switch 2 at an even more premium price point. I bought my Switch Lite for £62, my Switch OLED for less than £100 (slightly tatty) and I buy secondhand cartridge games mostly which I can sell on later once bored with. Most of the Switch games I've bought digitally I've bought with huge discounts probably averaging around a 90% discount. Bioshock Trilogy £7.99, Kingdom Come Deliverance £3.99, Duke Nukem Anniversary £1.39, Metro twin pack £2.19 etc. I did buy Mario Kart World digitally for £31.99 though. I do want Fallout 4 but I can play it on other systems so will wait for a large discount and if that doesn't happen I won't buy it. I'm not prepared to pay a Nintendo tax as I have other consoles and a PC.

@BonzoBanana

As we already discussed in another thread, "Nintendo tax" isn't really a thing that exists anymore. For example, if you go to Dekudeals.com and compare the price of Fallout 4: Anniversary Edition on different platforms, it's exactly the same in the eShop, Playstation Store, Xbox Store, and Steam.

I think the virtual boy is hugely underappreciated. Most people only know it from it's reputation for "causing eye damage" when in reality it was a system with a lot of potential. Despite it having just 2-bit colour (4 colours on screen at a time) it was actually hugely more powerful than the SNES, it was the first Nintendo console to use a 32-bit CPU and could have had some revolutionary games in my opinion had it not been discontinued so soon.

Red Alarm and Warioland are the only games that really pushed the hardware, and I highly recommend anyone who got the virtual boy accessory play them, Red Alarm in particular is super impressive and honestly really enjoyable.

We're actually getting 2 games that were previously unreleased for the virtual boy soon, and one of them is an F-zero game. We never got any racing games on the virtual boy, and in my opinion, racing games are exactly the kind of thing that would shine on this system, so I am extremely excited to give it a go when it's out.

As for the price of the thing, it's controversial, but I don't think it's too bad. It's extremely well made just like all the other NSO accesories. And people spend far more on "just a bunch of plastic", have a look at gunpla fans and their p-bandai kits.

I think on most other formats they would just buy the game of the year edition though which is only missing the pointless creation content which is generally very badly reviewed. I'd be quite happy buying the Switch 2 version for the £9 it costs for the game of the year edition on PC. However I totally accept that the Switch 2 is a fixed platform requiring a dedicated port of the game which costs money to develop but still I think they should have asked no more than £29.99 for the game but it is what it is. I strongly suspect it will not hold its value at all and within a month or so it will probably be on offer sub £20 but we shall see.

Yeah, I'm sure there'll eventually be big sales on Fallout 4, just like there have been on Skyrim's Switch version. But my main point was that Microsoft/Bethesda has deemed the Anniversary Edition to be worth the same 60 euro/dollar RRP on every platform, so there's no "Nintendo tax" here, just like there isn't on almost any other multi-platform game released on the Switch. The days when some publishers charged extra for Switch ports are seemingly behind us, nowadays almost all games seem to have the same RRP on all consoles and Steam.

My point is the Anniversary edition is being avoided on other formats as its just a price hike for extra content no one needs so makes the Switch 2 pricing look competitive but it really isn't as most people on other formats are steering clear of the Anniversary edition where as you are forced to buy the Anniversary edition on Switch 2. Also if you have a range of Fallout 4 versions on other platform like; Fallout 4 standard edition, Fallout 4 Game of the Year Edition and Fallout 4 Anniversary edition you have choices but on Switch 2 only the un-necessary ultra-premium version is available. That feels like unfair pricing to me and a unfair Switch 2 games tax. What if every Switch 2 game was super expensive but came with un-necessary extra DLC and was the only option would you still make the case there isn't a Nintendo game tax? I think we have both exhausted this point and will agree to disagree.