Nintendo has done it again. They’ve reached into their vault of questionable decisions from the 1990s and pulled out the Virtual Boy, that red-and-black migraine machine that defined “ambitious failure”, and somehow convinced themselves that slapping it onto the Switch as an accessory is a stroke of genius.
And you know what? They’re probably right.
Because despite every rational bone in my body screaming “this is ridiculous,” I’m already planning to order one when it launches next year. Even though I own an actual Virtual Boy sitting on a shelf in my back room, gathering dust and probably leaking battery acid. Even though it’s a little faulty, and I haven’t touched it in a decade or more. Even though I know, with absolute certainty, that the novelty will wear off almost immediately, just like it did with my original unit. I have to have one anyway.
The Virtual Boy: A Brief History of Regret
For those unaware, the Virtual Boy was Nintendo’s 1995 attempt at virtual reality, which is like saying the Hindenburg was an attempt at air travel. It was a table-mounted stereoscopic 3D headset that displayed everything in eye-searing red and black, gave users headaches within 15 minutes, and was discontinued faster than you could say “neck strain.”
It was, objectively, terrible. It was so difficult to play comfortably.
It was also kind of amazing in that special way that only spectacular failures can be. The games were oddly compelling in short bursts. The technology was genuinely novel for its time. And it represented Nintendo taking a big swing, even if they whiffed spectacularly.
Why This Will Work (Unfortunately for My Wallet)
Here’s the thing about Nintendo: they’ve mastered the art of selling us our own childhoods back to us, one peripheral at a time. They turned the NES Classic into a phenomenon. They’ve convinced grown adults to pay for Nintendo Switch Online just to play games they already own on cartridges.
The Virtual Boy accessory, assuming it’s essentially a headset adapter that you put your Switch or Switch 2 into, similarly to VR Google attachments for smartphones. It will allow you to play a small range of original Virtual Boy games, which will launch in the Nintendo Classics library.
It is great nostalgia bait, but this time it has the novelty that most people haven’t actually played these games before. Apparently, the Wario game is worth playing.
Nintendo knows its audience. They know there are thousands of us out there with original Virtual Boys in closets, broken or functional, who convinced ourselves we were early adopters of VR rather than victims of poor product planning. They know we’ll see this announcement and think, “Maybe this time it’ll be better.”
It won’t be.
They know there are thousands more people curious to see the dumpster fire that it is up close, having never had the chance to play one, or the money to buy one on the secondary market. People will want to buy it just to see how bad it is. But I don’t think it will sell nearly as well as the N64 controllers and other retro items Nintendo has sold to its members, as the overall use of this device is much more limited, unless Nintendo starts releasing new VR games, which is entirely possible.
The Inevitable Reality Check
Let me paint you a picture of what will happen when everyone’s Virtual Boy Switch accessory arrives:
Week 1: Unboxing video. Instagram stories. “This is so cool!” We’ll play through one full session of whatever Virtual Boy game they’ve remastered. We’ll text friends about it. I’ll feel vindicated for keeping my original unit all these years.
Week 2: We’ll boot it up once, maybe twice. The initial magic will have faded. Our necks will hurt. We’ll remember why stereoscopic red-and-black gaming never caught on.
Week 3-Forever: It’ll sit on a shelf next to our Ring Fit Adventure and our Labo VR Kits, a monument to Nintendo’s ability to separate us from our money. Oh yeah. Labo also had VR. I never bought into that as cardboard isn’t durable. Maybe some old Labo VR games will work with it, but some definitely won’t, as they require you to move your head, something you can’t really do with a Virtual Boy (using a Joy-Con with gyro sensors hidden inside the cardboard headpiece).
This is the exact same trajectory as my original Virtual Boy. I was so excited when I got it. I played Mario Clash and Mario’s Tennis until my eyes burned. I tried out the Galactic Pinball game for a bit, but it really didn’t need to be in VR. And then… nothing. It became a curiosity, a conversation piece, a relic. Yet, a great centrepiece to my collection.
So Why Buy the new Virtual Boy for Nintendo Switch?
Because that’s what we do, isn’t it? We buy the nostalgia. We buy the experience of being disappointed in the exact same way we were disappointed before, but with better graphics and wireless controllers.
Nintendo has built an empire on our inability to learn from our mistakes. They’ve weaponised our childhoods against our credit cards. And honestly? I respect the hustle.
The Virtual Boy accessory is a terrible idea that will be wildly successful. It’s a solution to a problem nobody has. It’s a product that will bring brief joy followed by prolonged indifference.
And I’ve already set a reminder to pre-order it.
Because mayb, just maybe, this time will be different.
(It won’t be.)
