Was the Virtual Boy actually a bad console or were consumers

>>3748650
It was pretty inconvenient and strained people's eyes. Is op a contrarian or is he just being a faggot? I think both.

>>3748656
The games were pretty good.

>>3748650
look into one for 5 minutes and you'll understand why it sucks

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Both.

The VB was a bad console from an industrial and ergonomic POV.
I mean the whole design of it, the tripod, the AV battery slot on the controller, monochrome display (the red and black is actually cool to me, but most people disagree and just prefer plain white and black).

On the other hand, the VB is a pretty cool 5th gen system (it uses the same cpu as the PC-FX), very weird but kind of cool. It has only a handful of games in its library, roughly 20, not much more than that, but most of them are at least decent, and some of them just plain amazing, like Wario Land and Teleroboxer.
Got some cool stuff only released in Japan, as well.

>>3748669
Forgot to mention, the VB actually looks pretty nice provided you adjusted the Focus switch and the IPD.
Most people never really tried one IRL anyway.
The thing doesn't really strain your eyes, some people might experience motion sickness, but that has nothing to do with the VB itself, it doesn't actually hurt your eyes, that's a myth.
But from an ergonomic point of view, the design flaw is the position you're required to be when playing it.
It should have been a full headset that could attach to your head, at least as an optional feature (it's a bit heavy for kids or girls).

>>3748668
>never actually tried a virtual boy

>>3748672
its not actual VR though, its just a stereoscopic display.

>>3748650
It was bad and is bad and only try hard baby hipsters disagree.

A few good games, terrible everything else.

>>3748668
Already have and it works great. So go back to youtube and belive you are experiencing life

>>3749669
Deluding yourself into believing something shit is good to prove your hipster cred is hardly "experiencing life" champ.

All those games could have become SNES titles.

Bought mine in 2008, got a flashcart soon after.

Wouldn't trade it for the world.

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>>3748650

Why not both?

>>3750252
More like N64 games, maybe. Virtual Boy is a 32-bit system.

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I guess I'm /vr/'s resident Virtual Boy fag

At any rate, I can assure you OP that 95% of the people that say the unit is shit have never actually used one, instead basing themselves off of other people who have never used one.

When you look at it for what is, it's a nifty little console with some great games. Maybe it's just me, but I don't get eyestrain at all

>>3748672

This

Eyes are fine, neck is destroyed from five minutes of virtual boy play in the store

>>3750252

Vertical Force would be a different game in 2D

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>>3750539
Nice collection. I tried Virtual Boy at KMart in 1995 or so. It wasn't very fun and I didn't like the red. I thought (and still think) a battery-operated "portable" console with so much cumbersome mass is a dumb idea.
>Gee, I sure hope Nintendo doesn't do that again.

>look at buying a virtual boy 7 years ago
>$100 + 75 to ship to australia
>Don't bother and buy a super nintendo instead
>check a couple of weeks ago
>$300 for a unit with no game

t-that's okay i didn't even want one

I've seen units sell for $50 on ebay but they're always broken with one of the LED's being dead

Is there an easy way to fix this?

>>3750593
shove the lens in the oven

I'm not shitting you. Or, if you want a more permenant fix, you can ask HP from planetvb.com to solder fix it

>>3750593
Fuck, I'm in the same boat.

I was gonna get one back in like 2008, when they were about $80 w/ a controller, and games were like $10, but I decided not to because I didn't know too much about them or how to fix them.

Now it's out of my price range until I can get a real job.

At least I pulled the trigger on getting a N64 and all them games I wanted before the prices get too much higher.

>>3750723
Yeah i backed out because even though i was interested in it it would have mostly been a novelty for me and i probably would have played it twice before putting it in my closet and never touching it again, which is why I opted for the super nintendo, same price with a bunch of great games that i could play over and over again.

Now i can't even enjoy it as a novelty without shelling out my ass for it

Virtual Boy makes the Wii U look like the greatest ever made by comparison.

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>>3748668

This.

>>3750539
I've played the Virtual Boy extensively. It's a piece of shit, but it really wasn't supposed to be released the way it was.

Of its 22 games, the only ones really worth playing are VB Wario Land and Vertical Force.

I've always thought Teleroboxer was terrible and I have no idea why people recommend it.

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>>3751247
>I've always thought Teleroboxer was terrible and I have no idea why people recommend it.

Maybe because you never learned how to play it? It's a pretty fun boxing game with robots, with intuitive gameplay and good challenge. It's basically first person Punch Out.

There's also other good VB games worth playing, like Jack Bros., Red Alarm (for fans of wireframe), Space Squash, Mario's Tennis, Mario Clash, Panic Bomber, V-Tetris, 3D Tetris, Galactic Pinball (amazing, underrated game), Golf, SD Gundam Dimension Wars. There's more I might be forgetting and there's even more if you get a flashcart (which you should, games are rare and expensive now, especially the best ones), and you can get unreleased games like Bound High or fanmade works like the port of SSFII Turbo.

Having a VB is fun because it's so unique, you can't get the same experience emulating, it's like the Vertex.
It has only 20 or so games, but I'd say only 1 or 2 are really shit games, the rest range from great (VB, Teleroboxer) to okay (mario's tennis, bomberman panic, etc).

>>3748650

Warrio Land is so cool, one of the best Nintendo games I've ever played (plus the final boss is creepy as fuck)

>>3750723
>>3750593

HOLY BALLS! are they really going for that much now? Now I don't feel so lame for cleaning mine with q-tips for the last 20ish years haha.

Funny thing is I paid $19.99 brand new in box from toys-r-us when they were trying to close out their stock.


>>3751341

This guy gets it.

I have never gotten past the 4th match personally, but I am bad at most games.

>>3748650
I want one but at current prices I'm just gonna buy more n64 games
Had it back then

You can argue it's not that bad if you want, it's a cool novelty item and I'm glad I got one before the price got too steep. But it was still bulky, awkward, fragile, took 6 aa batteries, had black and red monochrome graphics, made people ill, had healthwarnings about eye damage on the box, and had only one really good game.

>>3751480
>made people ill

Never had a problem with it.
I think it has more than 1 good game, but yeah VB Wario Land is the killer app.

>>3751483
People who felt ill after playing it probably had the Interpupillary distance set wrong.

>>3751341
>fanmade works like the port of SSFII Turbo.

Wait a sec, there's a fanmade port of that for the Virtual Boy? That sounds awesome if that is true.

>>3748656
Back when it was released my dad's friend gave one to his son for Christmas. We played it for hours and never got any eye strain and the games were fun for the time.

Not having played the thing in 20 years I couldn't say if it holds up or not.

>>3751492
It's true

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh_0fsyTQzM

I still have one and it's a good system, the eye strain and headaches is complete bullshit.

It's short basically launch library was actually pretty damn good, much better than the Game Boy that outside maybe some le hidden gem, only had Tetris and Super Mario Land for the first 2 years of the console.

Consumers should've given it a chance.

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>>3750539
>>3750723
>>3750593

They're really that expensive? I got three units for less then $100 not two months ago.

Here's a secret: the real way to find good deals is to buy "broken" items that you know are easy to fix. That's how I turned three semi-functional virtual boys into three fully functional units, as well as pretty much everything else I have

by the way, this does NOT apply to pic related, NEVER buy a broken old computer unless you know the EXACT problem and can fix it

>>3750539
I rescued one from a friends basement and it is awesome. I really love Wario Land on it but red alarm looks pretty neat too. Wish I could get a Virtualboy flash cart though so I could play Jack Bros without spending a small fortune.

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I bought mine from a girl a couple years ago.
She didn't seem to want to part with it but probably needed the money, she was like "if you ever decide to sell it back, I'll buy it again", and she was a bit hesitant to let it go, seems like she had a lot of good memories with it.
The only problem it has is that the battery pack is corroded and it's really hard to get it working, like you have to put the controller on a fixed position and if you move it a bit, it will turn off.
Been meaning to get one of those adapters to use the SNES AC but they're kinda expensive too.

Mafia offed Yokoi over it

>>3751341
>with intuitive gameplay
Using two D-pads is in no way intuitive, and it's not like a first-person Punch-Out at all. Every time I ever played it I put up with it for 30 minutes before turning it off to play something better.

As someone who has played the U.S. release of Jack Bros. on a real VB, it's really nothing noteworthy. It's just a rare game and that's where the interesting part of it ends. Mario Tennis is scraping the bottom of the barrel since it's a somewhat competent tennis game that was made vastly better in sequels.

The Virtual Boy is more of a curio than anything else. Something people buy to display that they own since the game library is very poor.

>>3751341

There are VB flashcarts?
Is the system sought after enough with itssmall library that that is profitable enough?

>>3751934
They're made in small batches by a dude with a passion for the VB.

>>3751934
Should be. Any electronics hobbyist who works with flash could build one for a few bucks in an afternoon. Even with flash cart maker SOP like using expensive prototyping services, priority shipping and buying components at onesies retail prices there will be a substantial gap between production cost and what they can be sold for.

>>3751927
>Using two D-pads is in no way intuitive

How is it not? Don't you have 2 arms? Can't you learn left and right coordination? There's no more intuitive than that for a boxing game.
In fact, modern boxing games use dual analogues for right and left arms. It's the way boxing games should be played.

>and it's not like a first-person Punch-Out at all.

That's right, instead of evading like on Punch-Out, you use your arms to cover yourself. Well, you can dodge, but it's a less used mechanic that also leaves you open for attacks. It's more complex than Punch-Out.
It's a pretty fun game, the real final boss was a pretty good challenge. I really liked this game, maybe even more than Wario Land.

>it's really nothing noteworthy.
It's playable and fun if you like that kind of game, I never said it to be a masterpiece, but it's worth trying out at least. Also, it has the curiosity of being the first ever Megami Tensei-related game released in the west.

>Mario Tennis is scraping the bottom of the barrel since it's a somewhat competent tennis game that was made vastly better in sequels.

I didn't mean Mario's Tennis was this 10/10 game, it's just good for what it is, and the 3D effect is cool in a tennis game. I also like that it used SMW-like art direction.
Yeah, later games in the series were better, this one was the first, and it doesn't even have multiplayer (probably the vb scene found a way, though). but the point is that the game is functional and playable, and can also be fun depending on your tastes in games. It's not a bad game and is worth trying if you get the VB. Same with Golf, it's a competent game made by T&E who do good Golf games, but it's just that, good, not some masterpiece you ought to play. However, if you're getting a VB, it's not a bad idea to try it out, it's not a bad game, it's not broken or unplayable, many other failed systems had mostly bad software, not the VB.

>>3751927
Using two d-pads is perfectly intuitive. You may have trouble with it because you've only ever used one and two makes your autism itch but a normal person will have no problem. Do the wonderswan controls cause you to have a similar autistic fit?

>>3749627
This.

>>3751505
>It didn't happen to me so that means it didn't happen to anyone else

Okay.

>>3752617
Why do I care if it hurts other people's eyes? It was fine when I played it so fuck it.

>>3748650
Its not that good

>>3748650
Plebs

>>3751483
Neither have I, but plenty have.

>>3751491
Aint gonna help for motion sickness.

>>3753475
Motion sickness is not inherent to the virtual boy. Someone might experience the same with a regular screen depending on the game.
Since most VB games were actually 2D, I don't think a lot of people suffered m.s.
Most of the problem would have been maybe dizziness due to not adjusting the focus, it's like looking through a pair of glasses, but you adjust it, and if the image is clean for you, you shouldn't have any problem or eyestrain.
Again, the worst thing about the VB is the neck pain.

>>3748650

For 1995 it was a really good, clear, sharp 3D display system. But without color, almost nobody wanted it. It also didn't have enough horsepower to push the kind of graphics you think of when you hear "virtual reality".

If they waited a few years, the cost of blue and green LEDs came down. It could have been full color and an optional 3D display for supported N64 games, many of which were already programmed to display two or more simultaneous views on account of multiplayer modes.

>>3748650
Well, it was terribly designed. I know Yokoi blah blah, but sorry, it was shit.
The "portable" shit was stupid, and should have been dropped. That meant that this fucking monster of a console was competing in portability with fucking Game Boy, and had to run on batteries. Who the fuck would use a VR system as a handheld anyway?

The "goggles on stand" design was bad, and ANYTHING should've been done to turn it into an actual headset you can wear. Every other VR project, actual or theoretical, before or after that, used a worn headset concept. The stand thing has exactly no comfortable way to play it, really, and makes you look very stupid.

Red display was idiotic. Red has less overall contrast with black than white does (there's a reason why text terminals used white font on black background), and staring at saturated colors for extended periods of time causes eyestrain - in addition to eyestrain due to the fact that there are screens right next to your face.
Not only that, but it also forces a color palette on games that might not fit thematically - ah yes, happy and cheery Mario Clash, colored like VOID AND GORE.

Ironically, all of that is basically packaging. You could probably release a console with the same actual hardware, games and controller, and have a much more succesful console, if the above was better designed.

Still, even then it would've probably failed anyway, just not so much. It was a 3D gimmick console, that wasn't CD based and couldn't display much of actual 3D - and what it could do, few games actually used.
It's library mostly consisted of 2D platformers and sports games that couldn't utilize the gimmick well, instead of 3D shooters that could utilize the double D-Pad setup - it had one FPS, I think? I know more were in development, but it should've at least LAUNCHED with a Wolf 3D port.

Basically, it was another Power Glove - not a bad concept in itself, but terribly designed, terribly marketed, and had a weak library.

>>3753830
btw i mean weak library as in, poorly using the central concept of the hardware. Games were good, but most of them probably would've been better on SNES+Super FX.

>>3753830
It has red LEDs because other colors were prohibatively expensive.

LEDs are cheap nowadays, but back then they were considerably more expensive, particularly for colors other than red.

Red is the cheapest because that's the natural color they make.

>>3753841
I see. That sucks.
Heh, a fun thought - what if the thing that could've saved Virtual Boy was Power Glove? I mean, Mario Clash, Tennis, Golf, Tetraboxer - these sound like titles that would be fun with motion controls, even basic (as Wii Sports shows). And it would have give console a niche that noone else at the time would offer.

>>3748650
It's pretty easy to see, with the price and limitations, why people didn't buy it.

Virtual Wario Boy is very good, though.

>>3751792
Alright so redpill me on which issues are the easiest to fix on VB.

>>3753830
>Every other VR project, actual or theoretical, before or after that, used a worn headset concept.

And they had sucky high latency tracking.

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>>3753929
The ONLY issues these things ever have is with the glue that binds the little ribbon cable to the actually mini screen. What you do is take out the lens, and shove it in the oven for 2 or so minutes at 250 degrees. Then you pull them out, and rub the cables to ensure a strong bond

No, I'm not shitting you, check out Planet Virtual Boy: http://www.planetvb.com/modules/newbb/

Granted this is a temporary fix. If you want a permanent one, look up the solder method. You might want to talk to someone like HPLove... something? He'll do it for you for a pretty good price

>>3754496
And the fact that they sucked ass

>>3748650
I only used one for about 10 minutes back in the day, over a friend's house. Pretty sure I was playing Wario Land. It was fun, and it didn't hurt my eyes at all, like the memes would have you believe, but then again, I was like 10 years old.

>>3753483
Motian sickness is more of an issue with consoles like the virtual boy because it fills your vision. While you can experience it on any console it's less likely and can be fixed simply by moving further from the screen. Never had neck strain myself, but I've allways played it lying face down on a bed instead of using the stand.

But I think the fact we're even discussing how to play it without feeling ill highlight a problem. I've never heard anyone have that kind of conversation about any other console, new vr headsets excepted.

>>3748650
it is bad it will make your eyes bleed

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It was a pretty awful system hardware-wise but it has some amazing games like pic related and Wario Land

Itt: butthurt poor kids and people who actually own vb

>See adverts for the Virtual Boy
> HOLY SHIT A 3D GAME BOY IS COMING OUT!!
>Friend gets one for christmas
>we all come over and ask to play it
>you can tell hes feigning enthusiasm about it
>"Yea its pretty great. Its all 3D and stuff and its not hard on your eyes. Yea its big but its got alot of power!"
>no one is impressed
>go play killer instinct

>>3753483
I get motion sickness pretty bad when playing modern FPS games. All one of my friends plays is FPS games. I don't even know what it is about it, I played them just fine at his place for 360, but for some reason xbox one and ps4 just fucking destroys my eyes. I can't focus at all.
I can't use 3D on the 3DS either. Really wish I could, it looks so nice.

>>3759058
>Itt: butthurt lp idiots who actually fell for the vb meme