/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.2438235]

What went wrong with the Virtual Boy?

[Anonymous No.2438237]

red

[Anonymous No.2438278]

>>2438235
Have you played one? At first you think it's really cool. Then you realize that forced perspective by shooting laser beams into your eyes hurts like a motherfucker after about 30 seconds of play

[Anonymous No.2438291]

>>2438278
>playing with the VB will make your eyes bleed XD

I love this meme, my favorite

I bet you never actually played with a real VB.

[Anonymous No.2438303]

>>2438291
I'm staring at mine right now. It strains my eyes if I play it for more than a couple of minutes. At first it didn't bother me, but then after playing Warioland for a while I caught on to it. Now it gets me within a few minutes everytime, maybe because I am anticipating it.

Btw Mario Tennis is awesome.

[Anonymous No.2438308]

>>2438303

You realize the VB doesn't actually "shoot lasers" at your eyes, but it's more like watching a black background with dim red lights? You know, like the stand by light on your TV when it's off.

Playing with a CRT within few meters should do more damage to your eyes than using a VB.

You probably are experiencing motion sickness which doesn't actually damage your eyes

[Anonymous No.2438309]

>>2438291

You should really take a break from posting until you can get your point across without shitposting. This place is a refuge from the /v/ attitude, not a part of it.

[Anonymous No.2438310]

How the hell an entity like Nintendo could ever let that slip by their quality control department is beyond me.

>RED
>forced to use at only one angle at a limited height
>no real 3D, just super close 2D
>no gaems

[Anonymous No.2438315]

>>2438308
>VB writes a post on 4chan.jpg

[Anonymous No.2438317]

>>2438309
>This place is a refuge from the /v/ attitude, not a part of it.
Fucking lies, idiocy has been a part of /vr/ since it's inception. Pretending otherwise is being too optimistic. Just focus on making good posts and everything should be fine.

did you honestly forget where we are? video games will probably always be discussed by jaded close-minded weebs

[Anonymous No.2438323]

>>2438310

>no gaems

for a system that failed so much, it sure has games.

There's consoles out there with less worthwhile gamdes than the VB.

VB at least has Wario Land, Teleroboxer, it even has a god damned Gundam SRPG in Japan.

It has a small catalogue, but it's not bad.

[Anonymous No.2438328]

>>2438308
Naw. Eye strain due to forced perspective.

Also the VB works by vibrating a mirror back and forth to reflect a column of LEDs into your eyes. The image is formed by scanning. In this sense there is no traditional screen, just a single column of pixels. The perspective is effectively generated by stereogram.

CRT doesn't force your eyes to focus on two different things. Doesn't hurt me at all, even in a dark room.

Also not motion sickness. Kind of a stressed feeling like you're eyes are tired of trying to focus.

[Anonymous No.2438332]

>>2438317
>le "where do you think we are" meme
well meme'd xD

dank brah

[Anonymous No.2438335]

>>2438235
Someone had the bright idea of using lasers with mirrors as though that wouldn't toast the eyesight of children.

You can see the damage being done when you take your head out and you only see red.

[Anonymous No.2438340]

I've had a virtual boy since the 90s. I bought it for like $20 on super clearance.

If you have an adult-sized head (I'm a pretty tall guy, so mine is extra large) it WILL give you a headache after an hour or two. The all-red LEDs were a foolish, rushed choice that made no sense. White LEDs would have only been marginally more expensive and made it feel a lot more like a Game Boy. People didn't buy it, publishers barely supported it. It would be a lot easier to talk about what went RIGHT with it because it's a much shorter list.

The thing was dead in the water. The only reason it has such an important place in history is because it was made by Nintendo and you can tell they'd rather just forget about it because they haven't released any of the games on 3DS VC, which couldn't be more perfect for them

I like Red Alarm though.

[Anonymous No.2438341]

>>2438332
Holy shit, shut up.

[Anonymous No.2438342]

Come on, the eye strain isn't that bad if you don't disable the automatic "breaks" for resting that the console puts up

Do you need to play for hours without interruptions?

[Anonymous No.2438345]

>>2438332
video games

[Anonymous No.2438347]

>>2438342
>automatic "breaks"
That's an indicator of a problem with the Virtual Boy's design. It was awful. /vr/ shouldn't be defending this garbage.

[Anonymous No.2438358]

>>2438341
>>2438345
What are you mad about? Didn't that guy just say this place was always shit? That there's no point in trying to improve? Then why even try?

Just wallow in your own fecal matter like you suggested.

[Anonymous No.2438359]

>>2438235
the fact that it was a horrible idea and should have never left the prototype stage is what went wrong with the virtual boy.

[Anonymous No.2438368]

>>2438347

>/vr/ shouldn't

/vr/ is not one person

>>2438328

>Naw. Eye strain due to forced perspective.

Forced perspective? you mean having to stay in the same position for a long time? if so then agreed, that's one of the main flaws of the VB.

>Kind of a stressed feeling like you're eyes are tired of trying to focus.

You did adjust both Focus and inter pupil distance switches, right? I assume you did and you still have trouble focusing, but once I adjusted it with the switch it was automatic, I would focus without problem. Adjusting the distance you have between eye and eye so that they match with the screens is also important. They were at least sensible enough to include these switches, otherwise I would agree, focusing it without being able to adjust would be impossible to play for more than a few minutes.
I agree the Virtual Boy is basically a monster console, and maybe that's why I like it, it's weird as fuck, and it has at least 5 games I love on it, plus other 10 that are not bad either (just avoid Water World), the thing was practically sabotaged by Nintendo, there's many rumours regarding the VB and Yokoi leaving Nintendo.

[Anonymous No.2438371]

>>2438235
Pretty much everything, though the 3d was pretty good. I mean it's a nice novelty item to have in your collection, but it's really not something I can seem many people playing regularly.

.

[Anonymous No.2438380]

>>2438358
>What are you mad about? Didn't that guy just say this place was always shit?
That was me who said that

also nobody was mad until you said the word, that's how it tends to works here. So cry some more I guess?

[Anonymous No.2438382]

>>2438368
By forced perspective I mean that your eyes were each focusing on different things which hurts.

Sitting down and playing the thing doesn't bother me. Actually I usually play my VB on my back and lay it on my head.

The games were good. Just the eye strain sucks. Doesn't affect everyone though.

[Anonymous No.2438386]

How do you guys play VB?

I just lie on my front in bed, it's the most comfy way I've found.

[Anonymous No.2438394]

You can't play it with a friend. This hit me so hard when I showed my VB to someone. It's a Nintendo console and you can't share the experience with anyone. You just sit next to him and ask are we having fun yet

[Anonymous No.2438408]

>>2438380
lmao this nigga's a PhD on 4chan

[Anonymous No.2438416]

>>2438408
>>>/worldstarhiphop/

[Anonymous No.2438418]

>>2438235
Instead of screwing up with the virtual boy, nintendo should have canceled it during development, and made partnerships with AT&T, Time Warner Cable, And dish network to bring the Satelliview service to North America.

[Anonymous No.2438420]

>>2438418
Probably lost less money with the virtual boy then your retarded idea.

[Anonymous No.2438437]

>>2438418
>made partnerships with AT&T, Time Warner Cable,
Nintendo's too smart to waste time with those pieces of shit. Infact if it wasn't for monopolies and the difficulty of competing with these big behemoth companies nobody would put up with AT&T or Time Warner.

[Anonymous No.2438449]

>>2438420

Hey, what makes you think that the virtual boy is a lesser loss than taking the chance of making deals with TWC, Dish Network, and AT&T to bring the Satelliview service to North America? Sure it would be hard(especially at first) but it might have been worth it to one-up Sega Channel. I also find it a little bit self-centered that not even other parts of Asia were given Satelliview, such as South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, HK, and maybe Laos.

[Anonymous No.2438460]

>>2438449

Not him but Nintendo rushed the Virtual Boy development because they were focusing on the N64 release the next year. What makes you think making contracts with EA-tier companies for a satellite system for the Super Nintendo, not even the N64, would be a good idea?

[Anonymous No.2438474]

>>2438437
TWC has definitely become EA-tier company, but why AT&T?

[Anonymous No.2438505]

>>2438235
It's an anti-social portable device that wasn't portable.

[Anonymous No.2438518]

>>2438474
>but why AT&T?
Horrible customer service, poor account management, lack of variety in what you can get from them, and it's not worth what they ask for. Internet is better than nothing but I'm telling you something's fishy with these guys. There's no competition over here in the south for reasons I fail to comprehend.

10 mbps down/2mbps up is stupid and a stingy distribution of resources

[Anonymous No.2438969]

holy shit george had a virtual boy?

[Anonymous No.2438971]

>>2438235
Because you touch yourself at night

[||D.||.||\/||.||D No.2438990]

>>2438332
>>2438317
To think /vr/ was a decent board when it was first conceived
Fucking hell lads

[Anonymous No.2439051]

>>2438308
>You realize the VB doesn't actually "shoot lasers" at your eyes,

You realize he wasn't being literal and instead was describing what it felt like?

[Anonymous No.2439063]

>>2438990
>To think /vr/ was a decent board when it was first conceived

Nah if we are going to go by the first guy who makes a stupid post like yours whenever they see a shitpost then this board went to shit not even a month after it was created.

https://archive.moe/vr/thread/228805/#230834

[Anonymous No.2439768]

Oldfag here. My parents got me a virtual boy the year it came out, full priced, with Mario Tennis, Teleroboxer, and Galactic Pinball. I was like 11, me and my friends sunk hours days and weeks into that shit, none of us experienced the slightest discomfort or strain, we had a goddamn blast with that thing. I never really understood what everyone's problem with that was. The problem with the VB was that it was simply too weird and cumbersome. The games were excellent; Mario Clash was great, and Galactic Pinball is still one of my fav pinball video games of all time. It wasn't ahead or behind it's time, it was wasn't for everyone.

[Anonymous No.2439770]

* just wasn't

[Anonymous No.2439803]

>>2438990
I remember the first couple of weeks. It was actually a really exciting place to be, everyone felt so refreshed and it was the opposite of /v/. It's still pretty decent but it's not what it was.

[Anonymous No.2439823]

>>2439803
I was so happy with the board I actually wrote moot an email thanking him. Suffice to say it's not that way anymore. Still great but it's not at least 50% trolls or shitposting.

[Anonymous No.2439869]

>>2438382
forced perspective is when you can't tell the relative sizes of things in a 2d image. and your eyes are "focusing on two different things" all of the time, that's how stereoscopic vision works.

[Anonymous No.2439936]

Literally a meme machine.
There's absolutely nothing 'virtual' about it, but they decided to jump on board the 90's VR bandwagon anyway with the name and form factor. You are now aware that it was the most successful 90's 'VR' device.

Because it's not a handheld or TV console, being a tabletop device meant it was an odd fit in the console wars lineup. It's in the same category as the Vectrex or the bigger game&watches, which wasn't really a thing anymore.

The machine itself had a fair bit of muscle to it, had it been a single screen handheld it could have fit in as part of the upgrade path of the BOY line; I'm assuming it's more powerful than the GBC. If bulky fake helmets was the only way to do 3d in that era then it could have never succeeded, it's just too much of a hassle. Still someone had to try it first and at least they got it right the next time with technology that can do it - the 3DS is both the successor to the GB and the VB so it's neat that 3d has been finaly merged back in after an extended exile.

[Anonymous No.2439941]

>>2439936
>I'm assuming it's more powerful than the GBC

the virtual boy uses the same 32-bit RISC chip as the NEC PC-FX, it's fairly more powerful than the GBC and monochromatic color palette aside, it can do bigger sprites than the SNES, and also move them faster.

[Anonymous No.2439954]

I simply think it was too ambitious. I remember thinking those old namco football handhelds reminded me of it. Playing a game with a bunch of lines all the same color after years of progressive and more amazing graphics.

[Anonymous No.2439963]

>>2438235
Wrong paradigm at the wrong time. New fancy 3D geometry and super colorful detailed sprites were all the rage, and consumers would totally shame anything that dared show its face not conforming. Had it been even less powerful, and released much earlier with a better setup (we can all agree the stand is a bit of an odd design) it may have fared better.

[Anonymous No.2439972]

if it came with a wall adapter, had a sturdier, more adjustable stand, and wasn't monochrome it might have been moderately successful.

[Anonymous No.2439975]

>>2439972
>if it came with a wall adapter

I'm still trying to get one of the AC adapters for it, it lets you use the SNES AC cable on the VB.

[Anonymous No.2439979]

>>2439975
it was stupid for them not to come as standard. there was really no point in it being battery powered.

[Anonymous No.2439993]

>>2439979
There was a point at the time. Rechargeable battery packs were huge and crappy at the time. Don't get me wrong. It was still a piece of crap.

[Anonymous No.2440001]

>>2439993
i mean there was no point in it being battery powered at all, whether it was with a rechargeable battery pack or individual batteries.

[Anonymous No.2440009]

>>2440001
But how do you play it at McDonalds then?

[Anonymous No.2440230]

This may seem like a troll question but what was the real thinking behind the Virtual Boy? We can talk about all the cons of the device, but how did Nintendo, who produced the Game Boy and the Pocket, fuck up that much?

It was a portable system that wasn't really portable. Relative to the GB which was pick-up-and-go success, the VB was a complete 180. Was it trying to follow a trend? Did Nintendo sinking so much money into it that it had to come out?

[Anonymous No.2440236]

>>2438235
They didn't know that lasers could cover a spectrum of colors and went with infrared.

[Anonymous No.2440363]

>>2439869
You probably have a brain tumor if your eyes are focusing at different distances all the time. Stereoscopic vision works on parallax, not differential focusing between the eyes. Your eyes naturally focus at the same depth together.

I misused the term 'forced perspective'. What I was trying to get at is the how the VB creates the illusion of depth using parallax by drawing two images from slightly different perspectives. The VB is just a glorified stereoscope.

I think the eye strain comes into effect when your eyes are trying to focus on an image a few cm in front of them, while your brain is being tricked into thinking that their is depth information. In other words, your brain is telling you there is depth, when your eyes are telling you their is none. Therein lies the source of strain.

At this point playing my VB is a little like a food aversion; now that I am anticipating the eye strain, I almost don't even want to touch the thing.

[Anonymous No.2440383]

>>2440230
Well, it still fits into Yokoi's philosophy of withered technology with lateral thinking, the virtual boy itself is inspired by 3D picture booths from the 19th century, where you'd look at stereoscopic pictures in 3D for a nickel.
Yokoi simply thought about implementing this old technology and turn it into video games. Not a bad idea, really, but maybe too ambitious as some other anon said.

[Anonymous No.2440575]

>>2440383

that makes sense. thanks

[Anonymous No.2440578]

>>2440363
>What I was trying to get at is the how the VB creates the illusion of depth using parallax by drawing two images from slightly different perspectives. The VB is just a glorified stereoscope.
>creates the illusion of depth using parallax by drawing two images from slightly different perspectives.
this is how real stereo vision works as well. it's no more an optical illusion than your actual vision is. and the claim that you get eye strain from focusing on a different point than the point you're converging on is just bro science.

[Anonymous No.2440635]

>>2440578
With 'real' stereo vision, when you focus on an object 100m away, your brain tells you it's 100m away.

With 'VB' stereo vision, when you focus on an object 4cm away, your brain tells you it's 100m away.

I don't think the cases are comparable.

[Anonymous No.2440647]

>>2440635
if you hold your hand up in front of your face and converge on it but unfocus your eyes it doesn't strain your eyes. it's the same thing.

[Anonymous No.2440657]

>>2440647
Do it for 2 hours and then tell me how you feel.

[Anonymous No.2440671]

>>2440383
It wasn't ambitious. It was just badly implemented. I don't think they even properly playtested the hardware.

[Anonymous No.2440682]

>>2440671

It was ambitious considering the time.
As for testing and etc, I'm sure Yokoi would have wanted at least another year of development, but as I already said, Nintendo rushed its release to focus on N64 in 1996. They needed the VB out in 95, whether it bombed or not.
Not sure what could have changed about the VB though, probably mostly ergonomics, maybe a proper headset without a need of the stand. I don't think it would have changed the monochromatic scheme I personally love the red/black combination, wouldn't like it as much if it was boring black/white or blue/black

[Anonymous No.2440696]

>>2440657
totally fine. i have never once got eye strain from a 3d movie or a 3ds/virtual boy/etc. the closest thing i've got to eye strain is with the virtual boy where your L cones get fatigued from staring at the bright red for so long, but that doesn't have anything to do with stereoscopy.

[Anonymous No.2440710]

>>2440696
I'm pretty sure the eye strain isn't due to the red on black. It's way more plausible it's due to the way the 3D effect is generated.

[Anonymous No.2440729]

>>2440710
it has nothing to do with stereoscopy. staring at the bright red leds for extended periods of time fatigues your L cones, so when you take it off anything coloured red will look a lot less saturated than normal for a while.

[Anonymous No.2440761]

>>2440729
Fatigued cones != sore eyeballs, just slight change in color perception for a while until they rest up a bit.

>>2440696
Also when in a 3D movie you are focusing on a screen farther away, so the focus depth/perceived depth mismatch isn't as bad.

Also ur dumb.

[Anonymous No.2440786]

>>2440761
>Fatigued cones != sore eyeballs, just slight change in color perception for a while until they rest up a bit.
yes. that's exactly what i said.

[Anonymous No.2440796]

>>2440786
But mah eyeballs get sore nevertheless. The color isn't the issue. The faked depth is. Which has been my point all along.

[Anonymous No.2441256]

>>2438310
Gunpai Yoko (I probably fucked up the spelling) had a ton of clout at Nintendo. The gameboy and its success was due to mainly him. So basically, him and the engineers went wild with it and they were probably able to override whatever qa had to say. He would later go on to develop the wonderswan for bandai.

[Anonymous No.2441264]

>>2441256
Gunpei Yokoi was a hero of mine.