10 CRAZIEST Things Nintendo Has Ever Done
2. Release The Virtual Boy Before It Was Anywhere Near Done
Virtual reality gaming has finally begun to really hit a stride, with games like Half Life: Alyx demonstrating the heights that can be reached when major developers understand the tech and put their full support behind it. But of course they were not the first to try this tech on the open market. And when you're the first, you're almost always the worst.
Enter the Nintendo Virtual Boy.
In fairness, this thing MIGHT have worked, but we'll never know either way due to Nintendo rushing it to market LONG before it was even close to being ready. They hadn't even had time to look at their bright red monstrosity and ask themselves "hey maybe this thing we're asking people to look into while playing games could use, oh I dunno, a damned HARNESS?"
What resulted was an unfinished console with red and black graphics that made players' eyes hurt, with an incredibly limited library of games, that didn't even have the common courtesy of being true VR.
If the Virtual Boy hadn't failed, then we likely wouldn't have the new VR boom we have today, born out of learning from Nintendo's mistakes. But that doesn't make pushing this console out into the market to die any less insane.