Virtual reality has once again become an obsession with consumer devices such as Oculus Rift and PlayStation VR being popular with other competitors.
But why didn’t the idea of VR come home, and now it seems that it is finally flourishing.
In the 80s and 90s, Nintendo tried many different ways to improve the home console, enhance the user experience, and keep the console new and fun.
We can find many examples of add-ons for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), such as the Power Pad, Power Glove, and Zapper, all of which enable the game to be played in new ways.
By the mid-90s, Super Nintendo was obsolete, and new consoles are still a year away from their release.
Waiting for the Nintendo 64, the company has produced a new console, which hopes to connect with people until the N64 is ready and bring a fresh feel to the home console experience. Meat Virtual Boy.
At the 1995 Consumer Electronics Show, Nintendo released a device called the VR-32 and claimed to allow players to immerse themselves in the game they were playing.
It was later dubbed Virtual Boy, the first home gaming VR device.
Virtual Boy was officially launched in two markets; Japan acquired the console on July 21, 1995, while North America acquired it on August 14, 1995, about a month later.
Like most Nintendo consoles of the time, Virtual Boy comes with a game out of the box, Mario’s Tennis, which will be the first taste of VR technology for home users.
For 1995, Virtual Boy was too ambitious and took too many risks to demonstrate a concept that had not yet been discovered by the home console manufacturer. So how do they accomplish this?
under the hood
Virtual Boy is Nintendo’s first 32-bit game console. It is powered by a custom NEC V810, a 32-bit RISC processor clocked at 20 MHz.
This chip allowed the console to produce high quality graphics, at least for the “portable” consoles of the time, which you would expect to see from a standard home console.
Other details include dual port 128kb VRAM, 128kb DRAM and WRAM 64kb.
However, the main element here is the display pair. (One for each eye) which enables players 3D effects and VR sensations.
Each screen features a monochromatic red LED display, with a resolution of 384 x 224 pixels with four columns with 4 pixel columns – black and three red with an intensity of about 128 levels – and a 50 Hz frame rate.
Of course, because the screen used it in black and red, similar to the gameboy’s black and green.
The dual screen design allows people watching Virtual Boy at the same time to see two different images, creating the illusion of 3D using a 2D image, while a slider allows gamers to adjust the screen Allows Match the distance of the eye better and optimize the experience.
In keeping with the VR concept, the controllers are fitted with 2 directional pads at opposite ends, each with 2 buttons in front and 2 bumper buttons at the bottom.
The controller also serves as a power supply connection point with the option of an AC adapter or AA battery pack for the device.
As a result, Virtual Boy is set to be a smaller “portable” gaming system that is at least on par with Super Nintendo offering a more virtual reality experience.
Technically a 32-bit game console, the combination of low cost and size brings the console’s specs closer to Super Nintendo.
How to play games on virtual boy
As in the past, there was not much production, with a total of 14 games released in the US market and 19 for Japan – 22 in total.
Of all the games out there, most of them are seen as good and least fun, although only a few of them take advantage of the virtual reality experience and instead focus on the 3D side We do.
Only two of them tried to create an experience that truly felt the Virtual Boy: Tailboxer and Red Alarm.
Shot in both first-person view, Red Alarm is an optional first-person scene, while Teleroboxer is only first-person and uses both directional pads.
The latter is probably the best game on the system if anything shows what the console can do. Unfortunately, the rest of the game does not take advantage of what makes Virtual Boy unique.
Why don’t we remember much about the virtual boy.
First, the console’s reception is deep. The system was hung for less than a year in the United States before it was canceled. In Japan, it got worse, with the console spending five months in store shelves.
