Coming to the Switch and Switch 2 in US and Canada on February 17, 2026, Virtual Boy – Nintendo Classics will also require users to purchase the Virtual Boy for Nintendo Switch 2/Nintendo Switch accessory. The announcement was made with a trailer, which you can check out below.

There will be two versions of the Virtual Boy accessories – a full plastic one based on the original Virtual Boy design and priced at $99.99, and one made of cardboard that focuses on only providing the bare essentials, priced at $24.99. Owing to the design and lenses in the accessories, it is also worth noting that the Virtual Boy games available will be playable with stereoscopic 3D, much like the original console.

For the sake of context, the Virtual Boy a gaming console released all the way back in 1995, and was Nintendo’s attempts at tapping into VR gaming. Advertised as a portable device, the Virtual Boy had a stand that players would need to use as they played bespoke titles for the console.

Unfortunately, owing to its cumbersome design despite being a handheld as well as the low visual fidelity of its titles, the Virtual Boy didn’t see much in the way of commercial success. This was further stymied by the fact that there were only ever 22 titles released for the console before it stopped being sold and Nintendo went on to ignore that it ever existed.

Some of the titles that have been confirmed as being part of the Virtual Boy – Nintendo Classics collection include Mario’s Tennis, Galactic Pinball and Teleroboxer among others. All in all, Nintendo has also stated that 14 games will be added to the collection over time. Some of the titles confirmed to be coming are Mario Clash, Vertical Force, Jack Bros., and Innsmouth no Yakata.

When it comes out, Virtual Boy – Nintendo Classics will join the relatively-recent addition of GameCube games to the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscription service. Announced back in April during the dedicated Switch 2 Direct, Nintendo has confirmed that some of the games making their way to the Switch 2 through the collection include Super Mario Sunshine, Luigi’s Mansion, and Super Mario Strikers, among many others.

The addition of GameCube titles to the subscription also brought with it other new features, including the option for players to make use of a CRT filter to try and make the games look as close to what they would look like when they first came out in the early-2000s as possible.

Along with bringing the games from the console, Nintendo also launched a GameCube controller for the Nintendo Switch 2. While the company has stated that it is only meant to be used on the GameCube titles, players have discovered that it can be used for just about any game on the system as long as you don’t need more buttons than it can offer.

Given their massive pedigree and their enduring quality, ranking every single major gaming platform that they have ever produced seems like an insane task- but we’re nothing if not a little bit insane, so that’s what we’ll be doing here. Join us (or prepare to skewer us on your pitchforks) as we rank every single Nintendo handheld and home console from worst to best.

#13. VIRTUAL BOY

While ranking pretty much every other system Nintendo has made was far from easy, there was never any doubt in our minds that the Virtual Boy belongs at the very bottom of this list. There’s some reserved praise to be given here for its outside-the-box ideas and its usage of stereoscopic 3D back when games hardly even did polygonal 3D- but beyond that, the Virtual Boy has few redeeming qualities. Over the course of its life (and it was a very short life), the system got less than two dozen games in total- a shockingly low number, and not one of them was worth writing home about. The asinine design of the hardware only drives home the fact that the Virtual Boy is best left to the recesses of our memories.

]]> https://gamingbolt.com/all-nintendo-gaming-hardware-ranked-from-worst-to-best/feed 0 467119 https://gamingbolt.com/new-nintendo-patent-could-hint-at-upcoming-3d-gaming-feature-for-switch https://gamingbolt.com/new-nintendo-patent-could-hint-at-upcoming-3d-gaming-feature-for-switch#respond Thu, 24 Jan 2019 19:01:57 +0000 https://gamingbolt.com/?p=383412

Nintendo has been trying to get 3D gaming to be a thing for a very long time. The Virtual Boy was their first, horribly botched and disastrous attempt, but they then experimented with the technology on the GameCube and the Gameboy Advance, before finally giving it a second go with the Nintendo 3DS. The Nintendo 3DS was their most “successful” attempt at it, but whatever success the handheld saw was more on account of its software than its 3D.

But Nintendo seems undeterred, at least on the research and development side. A new patent filed by Nintendo indicates they are still looking at ways to bring 3D gaming to the masses. This new patent in particular involves eye tracking via a small camera or monitor affixed to your TV, which would then create the illusion of depth for the player without necessitating glasses (though a variant of the patent also indicates eye tracking via glasses). The stereoscopic effect achieved here would be not like on the 3DS, but rather achieved as an optical illusion via image rendering.

It could well just be a patent filed that goes nowhere. That happens all too often. However, for now, it does seem to indicate that Nintendo is at least researching ways of bringing 3D gaming, possibly to the Switch—at least in console mode.

Nintendo has previously discussed VR, but the truth of the matter is, the company right now does not have any VR product on the market, nor does it have any announced plans for the medium. Given how Nintendo trailblazed and pioneered 3D gaming back in the 1990s, those who may have expected and hoped for them doing the same thing with VR now are probably a bit let down.

But, speaking at the Geekwire Summit, Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime said (via Ars Technica) that Nintendo is constantly experimenting with VR, and it is technology that it is looking into. However, he admitted that until it meets Nintendo’s standards of fun, it’s not something the company will push out.

“This is something we constantly think about, experiment with,” he said, right after pointing out Nintendo’s previous sojourns with VR and AR (such as the Virtual Boy and the Nintendo 3DS). “For virtual reality, we’ve said: it’s tech that we’re looking at, but in the end it has to be fun. That’s our mission, and that is what we do arguably better than anyone else. We have nothing to announce here on this stage. These are going to be technologies that we’ll continue to experiment with. There are new experiences we want to bring to life.”

Given that the last time Nintendo pushed out a concept before it was ready got us the Wii U, I think I am fine with them taking their time on VR. It’s not like we have a shortage of great VR games to play right now either.

Evolve

Evolve wanted to bring a survival horror experience to a asymmetrical multiplayer space, asking players to play as either the hunters in a class based shooter similar to Borderlands, or as the monsters who much like a Ridley Scott creation would sneak around, attack when least expected and morph. Some early bugs and preorder bonuses that lost a lot of trust from would be players killed off

The next big paradigm shift in gaming is allegedly going to be virtual reality- while the HTC Vive and the Oculus Rift have both failed to make much of a mark for either the consumer market or the development community yet, it’s early days, and everybody expects virtual reality to induce the kind of shift that the rise of polygonal 3D originally did for video games.

As of right now, PlayStation and Xbox both have plans for this next big thing- PlayStation are bringing out PlayStation VR by the end of this year, while Xbox already has a partnership with HTC and Oculus to have some compatibility for both of their headsets on the Xbox One; the Xbox One Scorpio, in addition, is being made, in part, so Xbox can have true native VR compatibility.

But what about Nintendo? The company was experimenting with VR all the way back in 1995, when they released the infamous Virtual Boy- did its failure burn them so badly that they’re going to be sitting this round of VR wars out? Or do they have something planned? Speaking to Bloomberg, Nintendo of America’s Reggie Fils-Aime discussed Nintendo’s stance towards VR.

For us, we want to make sure technology is mainstream. We want to make sure that the technology represents strong value to the consumer,” Fis-Aime said. “So the way we look at VR, or even AR which we have within our Nintendo 3DS system, for us the technology has to be at a point where it could be mainstream, and then it takes content creating companies like us to really make things the consumer wants to experience, that they want to jump into the particular technology, that’s how we move it forward.

“We’ve been looking at the VR space since the days of the Virtual Boy. With us, we want to make sure our next content is going to be mainstream, mass market approachable. And when something like VR is at that point, you can expect Nintendo to be there,” he concluded.

It’s an intriguing note to end on- does this mean that the NX may in fact have some kind of VR compatibility, as was being rumored? Or are Nintendo content to wait for now, until the market is mature and proven? We don’t know yet, but it’s going to be exciting what kinds of things they can do with the medium, once they do get around to it.

History moves in cycles, and if anyone wants proof of that, the tech industry should be ample enough- a few decades ago, 3D was all the rage, and everyone was trying to get in on it, but issues such as a lack of content, health warnings, and the fact that people had to wear glasses, killed the format before it had the chance to take off. 3D was followed up by some attempts at virtual reality, though the technology then could not support the format at all.

Fast forward to today, when companies got excited about 3D and tried to push the format, but issues such as a lack of content and health warnings stopped it dead in its tracks; and now, the 3D push is being followed up by a push for VR.

Will VR this time meet the same fate as before? Unlikely, because the technology of today is actually more than equipped to meet the demands of Virtual Reality. Earlier attempts at VR, as a matter of fact, may have hurt the VR format far more than they helped it in the long run.

Oculus inventor Palmer Luckey certainly thinks so. When asked about some early attempts at VR, including Nintendo’s famous Virtual Boy, he said that the association of VR with the Virtual Boy probably set back the format by a fair bit.

“Not really a VR device, IMO. No head tracking, low field of view, essentially a monochrome 3DTV,” he said. “A real shame, too, because the association of the Virtual Boy with VR hurt the industry in the long run.It did have the first LED display in a consumer device, though – probably the best contrast of any display up to that point!”

Personally, I agree- it was just a poorly conceived device that hurt all the very things it was trying to push far more than it helped them. It was one of those rare systems that outright deserved to flop, because it simply was not a good machine- no amount of good games could have saved this one.

Glad to see that VR is moving away from its association with the Virtual Boy, and other similar products.

Nintendo was actually at the forefront of VR gaming with the original Virtual Boy released way back in 1995; Nintendo has since been experimenting with increasing immersion in games, with their efforts to push stereoscopic 3D gaming and motion and touch controls. However, after trying out the two current VR projects currently underway at E3, Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto has spoken out, saying that he isn’t exactly sold on VR tech as it exists today yet.

“When you think about what virtual reality is, which is one person putting on some goggles and playing by themselves kind of over in a corner, or maybe they go into a separate room and they spend all their time alone playing in that virtual reality, that’s in direct contrast with what it is we’re trying to achieve with Wii U.”

He added, “So I have a little bit of uneasiness with whether or not that’s the best way for people to play. From Nintendo’s perspective, there’s interest in the technology, but we think it might be better suited to some sort of attraction style of entertainment, say something at a video game arcade or things like that, rather than something that one person plays alone.”

He added that Nintendo is still interested in VR tech, and that when it is ready, they would be there, but that he does not think the technology as it exists today is currently ripe for consumption.

His thoughts have been echoed by many in the industry- in an exclusive interview with GamingBolt, infamous analyst Michael Pachter spoke out against VR, calling it a fad that would fade out soon enough.

Do you think VR gaming is going to be a fad, like 3D gaming was? Or do you think Facebook are on to something with Oculus?

“I cannot talk about any unannounced products on occasions like this, but Virtual Boy is a game console Nintendo launched in the past that allows players to experience a 3D world in black and red only by just looking into it.

“It was not a commercial success, but some say that it was an attractive and extremely unique product by the standards at that time. I believe your comment is that we should take advantage of our software assets from Virtual Boy and I would like to take note of that advice for the future.”

Would you be interested in playing Virtual Boy games on the 3DS?