I also wondered that. There’s some other interesting stuff too, like why there are so many warnings, and the research that was done that proved it was actually good for the eyes. It’s too bad that research never finished in time to promote it as a benefit. Instead the media went in the opposite direction, latched on to all the warnings and used them as ammo for their ‘unhealthy’ campaign.
Fascinating article. Learned a lot of new information.
I’ve always wished the VB had a Battlezone-type game, so it was interesting to read about the Private Eye tank demo they created.
i had always assumed 3D Tank was going to be a “port” of Battlezone, but after reading this article, maybe it was more closely related to the tank demo? i would love to play that demo on the head tracking prototype unit.
you never got to experience Battlezone in the arcade? there were a few games like that where you had to look through the scope to see what you were doing. i recall one in full color, but can’t place its name. Battlezone stands out in my memory because I recently played one again. i always thought a 3D-depth version would have been right at home on the VB. wireframe and everything, it just seems like a no-brainer.
Jeez… the first thing I see is the alleged August 21st release date of the Virtual Boy instead of August 14th, which most likely came from the contradictory information in the Wikipedia article. I have since changed all of the August 21 dates in the Wikipedia article to August 14. I guess time will tell if my changes remain unaltered.
I thought that seemed horribly wrong but still skipped over it visually. I am happy to know the origin of our beloved 3D console, as it’s super interesting.
Sucks to find out that the Nintendo President was one of the reasons for why we didn’t get good Mario games. He actually seems to have been a large amount of why the VB sold poorly… I mean honestly he wanted to keep the main Nintendo characters out of VB’s lineup. Lame.
Nice to see the faxview look like some spiritual brother to the virtual boy, was interesting only 2 products use this led/mirror
I wonder how far along the reflection tech full color version was the P7 before he went bankrupt. I wonder if a working version was made would be interesting to compare to now that we have the high resolution cheap lcd. That they weren’t able to use in the oculous
Wow, thanks for posting this speedyink! That’s by far the best researched and written VB article I have ever read and I learned a lot of new things. Hopefully it will be able to change the image of the VB in general consciousness and correct some of the many misconceptions that are still cemented in way too many heads.
i actually enjoyed this article so much that i think we should reach out and ask permission to mirror it here. if/when that link goes down that article may get lost forever.
KR155E wrote:
Wow, thanks for posting this speedyink! That’s by far the best researched and written VB article I have ever read and I learned a lot of new things. Hopefully it will be able to change the image of the VB in general consciousness and correct some of the many misconceptions that are still cemented in way too many heads.
No worries, Krisse! I clicked on it thinking I’d just be re-reading stuff I’ve already read, but to my surprise there is a ton of great info I’ve never heard before. I also hope people will see this is understand the console better (although it is the internet in 2015..my hopes are fairly low =P)
Lester Knight wrote:
i actually enjoyed this article so much that i think we should reach out and ask permission to mirror it here. if/when that link goes down that article may get lost forever.
I think so, too. This article is full of very valuable information and should both be preserved and made available to a broader audience. 🙂
So I immediately reached out to the author after reading the article to ask for permission to reprint it here, and quickly got a very kind reply. As expected, there’s a contract between the website, FastCompany, and the author, Benj Edwards, that makes the article a timed exclusive. Benj still holds all the rights, so we will be able to post the article here probably in 2017. In the meantime, I am going to create myself a private copy just in case and do a little news post about it and link to the article on FastCompany. They deserve all the clicks ans support they can get; they’re funding such fantastic journalism after all, which sadly has become a rare thing in the 2015 interwebz with all its Youtube channels, HuffPostiness and clickbait crap.
KR155E wrote:
In the meantime, I am going to create myself a private copy just in case and do a little news post about it and link to the article on FastCompany.
That’s a good idea, make sure we preserve the facts just in case their webhosting company skips town and the article disappears.
It was a very well-written article, there were some misconceptions cleared up for me since I didn’t know Yokoi planned to leave the company anyway. It’s a shame that we lost Mr. Becker too, since I don’t live very far from the city where his company was located. I’ll be sure to look for FaxView prototypes the next time I go to lawn sales around the area…
speedyink wrote:
I also wondered that. There’s some other interesting stuff too, like why there are so many warnings, and the research that was done that proved it was actually good for the eyes. It’s too bad that research never finished in time to promote it as a benefit. Instead the media went in the opposite direction, latched on to all the warnings and used them as ammo for their ‘unhealthy’ campaign.
Ooh, I never heard of reports that it helped the eyes – do you have any links?
The first link in this thread? I was referring to the part in that article where Nintendo got an eye doctor to test the system for potential health risks for your eyes.
Hideyuki Nakanishi also mentioned a possible positive effect on the eyes in our interview with him:
[…] the president tried to start making a software for correcting eyesight. Many developers had a similar idea in that time. The stereoscopic capability of Virtual Boy is effective in trainig the muscle of eyeballs actually. However, most people believed that Virtual Boy is bad for eyes.
that’s a great find. i never knew about that one! very interesting. i’m glad they took some photos of the demo in action so that we could enjoy seeing it all these years later.
