Virtual Boy tribute..., Plz read...

10 years ago today, game retailers were preparing what would be a giant step in gaming history. Pseudo or not, in the next day the video game market would witness the first ever virtual-reality game system. With anticipation growing even deeper, the nerds living in their mother’s basements were merely counting the hours until the release of Nintendo’s Virtual Boy.
But before this leap in video gaming, allow me to tell you the tale of the Stereoscopic beauty, that is the Virtual Boy.

It’s the spring of 1994, and Nintendo is skyrocketing with the success of the Gameboy, but doing a little above mediocre with the Super Nintendo. Now, Nintendo’s golden boy is the head of Nintendo division “Intelligent Systems”, a quiet and polite man, by the name of Gunpei Yokoi. He always wanted a portable game system, and seeing that the Gameboy is now the best-selling system, so did the world. However, Mr. Yokoi has something greater on his mind. The next-generation is coming, and this time it’s going to be a big one. While Genyo Takeda of Nintendo R&D3 lab, are working on a new system entitled “project reality” how about the next platform in the Gameboy line? Yokoi’s first idea was to have a virtual reality like “visor” with color display images, that would mimic a 3-D world. However, after finding out that producing color displays for a stereoscopic system would cost far too much, the idea is canned. His next idea, is that one way ahead off his time. Using LED for a stereoscopic game system, would be cheap, effective, and have the 3-D effect he was going for. He began working away on his project, code-named “VR32”, and announced more info would be revealed at Nintendo’s annual trade event: “Shoshinkai”.

After the long wait, the press gathered in November 1994 for the revealing of the world’s first virtual reality game system. Finally, the the “Virtual Boy” was revealed, and players got to see what the game system had in store. Yokoi said that the game system would ship mid 1995, in Japan and America,and early 1996 in Europe.

Finally, the time has arrived. Gamers arrive at their local retailer to claim their Virtual Boy, and take it home. Unfortunately for Nintendo, it all didn’t turn out as they hoped. Their original plan was to sell 2 Million units by the end of the year, and only 80 thousand of the units sold. After a year, of disappointing sales, only one hit was released, titled Virtual Boy Wario Land. Nintendo stopped selling the system, in 1996, when gamers would “make way” for the the Nintendo 64. Also that year, Gunepi Yokoi bid farewell to Nintendo, after almost 30 years of service. He started a small company called Koto, which means small town in Japanese. He created the game system “Wonderswan” and sold the system to Bandai. A year later, on a business trip him and a friend got in a small car crash. As Mr. Yokoi got out of the car to inspect the damage, a passing car ran him over. He passed away later that day.

You see folks, this is what happens to a great man. Even somebody who was the backbone of a company like Nintendo, is treated to window seat of the company, after an invention fails. Now the memory of Gunpei Yokoi has been washed away, much like his life.


Rest in peace Gunpei Yokoi...

This post has been edited by Kaepora Revolution on Aug 13 2005, 09:30 PM

I really wanted one of those when it came out, unfortunately I didn't have money of my own at the time and my parents wouldn't buy me video games (the most I ever got out of them was a gameboy and a new game every once in a while XD), but I did get to play it at my friend's house a few times, the only game I ever played for it was Red Alarm. Shame it didn't do as well as they hoped.

This just goes to show you, it's a cruel and uncaring world out there, even in Nintendo. Tell me, did God give Jesus the windowseat treatment when the world didn't all appreciate him? Actually, that may not be a proper comparision, many more Christian people know of Jesus then Nintendo fans know of Yokoi... I can't really think of what else to say that hasn't been said... I just can't... I'll just end this with a quote from an article...

"I doubt we will ever know whether Mr. Yamauchi regrets letting him go, or whether the tragic circumstances of Gunpei's death could have been averted. One thing is for sure, Gunpei deserves his place as a gaming legend, alongside his pupil Miyamoto. You also have to wonder whether Yamauchi would treat Shigeru Miyamoto quite so unfairly."

~Ferry Groenendijk

Wait a sec, so "treated to the window seat" = bad? I've never heard this expression before. XD

In Japan, the statement means to be cast aside. You're meant to fix the disaster you started, and only observe on the rest of the company.

Good, I was wondering about that as well.
Man alot of Otaku's who aren't necessarily nintendo fans should know him as well - whatwith like 60 percent of anime games bein' on the Wonderswan.

Nintendo should have learned from this that Innovation isn't everything