Have you seen the headlines
Nintendo's forecast is cloudy and the only thing that could have saved the company was the biggest flop in its history
Hello Internet welcome to game theory the show that doesn't need an intro joke this week because
Virtual Boy look it's a joke that writes itself this overpriced
Headache-inducing non. Portable portable gaming device from
1996 failed on every level sold only 700
70,000 units and has gone down in gaming history as the worst game console of all time
sure arguments can be made for the Philips CDI the Nomad the tiger R zone, but
Seriously, no one expected this steaming red and black turd to come from the biggest name in gaming now
19 years after its release
Nintendo has long since forgotten these god-awful goggles the thing is
They shouldn't have because the Virtual Boy was the one thing that could have saved the company from its current hardships
Don't believe me you will let's start by reviewing all the reasons why the Virtual Boy flopped first these
Everyone hates these sure obligatory
Battery breaks might be beneficial for my health as I'm forced to get out of my couches well maintained but groove
But nothing kills a play session quite like having to stop every few hours to recharge the Virtual Boy inhaled
doublea's faster than a binge-eating Kirby Nintendo I
Swear must have had a deal with the Energizer Bunny because I kept going and going and going
Back to the store to buy more packages of these darn things which brought up another problem the cost
Nintendo had always operated on the philosophy that good gaming didn't need to be expensive
But that belief went out the window with the Virtual Boy batteries chargers visits to the chiropractor
For your next train all those added to the already high
180 dollar price tag a price unheard of for a portable gaming system back in
1996 and what kept the virtual boys cost too damn high was the technology 3d ain't cheap my friends regardless
Of the decade in fact the infamous decision to make the graphics
Allred was a call purely made on cost having a single color was just cheaper
But apparently not cheap enough to make it affordable and what's worse than expensive technology expensive rushed
Technology according to David chefs book game over the lead developer on the Virtual Boy
never actually
Intended for the console to be released in the form and ended up in what showed up on the shelves of Toys R Us
Was practically a prototype so why release ax well Nintendo pushed the system to mark it
So it could focus development resources on something else codenamed project reality later known as the Nintendo 64
Clearly the right move, but that means Nintendo was perfectly comfortable letting customers
Overpay for a half-finished system a half-finished system mind you without games
literally there were 22
14 in the US
Launch titles don't make me laugh there were four now tell me which of these gems would get you to a midnight release
red alarm teller Oh boxer
Galactic pinball and Mario Tennis and the best part of all of the 14 games none of them actually
fulfilled the virtual reality part of Virtual Boy
Oh sure there was a 3d effect here there, but no one knew how to program for the thing in fact
Nintendo went out of their way to make it difficult for the games to get made in
1995 a year before Virtual Boy launched a Nintendo game designer openly admitted that very few
Third-party publishers had seen the system because Nintendo wanted to control what type of games were getting released
Worried that there might be a glut of low quality games headed to their new system of what?
Excuse me you were worried about crappy games and yet Waterworld got your seal of approval
well congratulations
Began your discerning taste crippled a system that barely had a leg to stand on in the first place
In summary virtual crashed and burden because of poor battery life
Overpriced technology that was rushed to market and a lack of quality games
Particularly at the system's launch sound familiar it should Nintendo repeated the same story in 2012 with this
The Wii U now I'm a huge Nintendo fan
So it pains me to say that sales for this have been abysmal since its release back in 2012
Wow hard to believe it's been that long only about five point eight million Wii U's if it's sold certainly better than the virtual boys
770 K. But you know how many PS 4s have been sold
5.3 million in four months right now the system is an anchor around the company's neck being a primary
contributor to three years of losses
1.2 billion dollars of Nintendo money quite literally lost in - world
Reggie's body may have been ready
but his pocketbook certainly wasn't as the company went from printing money with the weed to bleeding it and
Ironically enough the Virtual Boy predicted the failure of the Wii U nearly two
Decades earlier for all the reasons we just reviewed. Let's go down the list battery life nowadays
We have fancy charging stations
but at three-and-a-half hours of playtime per session the Wii U's
Tablet controller just doesn't cut it cost at launch the Wii U was
$300 for the cheapest version
But if you want a battery that will last more than a few hours that will cost you you want a regular
remote to play the games that work better without a
tablet
battle
FASTA you want a game to play since you know it didn't even have the decency to come bundled with anything well that will cost
You - both the Wii U and the Virtual Boy before it broke with Nintendo's history of keeping costs low
Instead featuring price tags that balloon to significantly via hidden costs for things
Necessary to get the system to function and ask yourself one question
Why is the system so expensive in the first place?
overpriced
technology remember virtual boys decision to go with the color red to save on production expenses
Nintendo relived its own history with the Wii U once again
sacrificing graphics this time competitive HD graphics gesso we could bundle a
Freaking iPad as a controller in a year - that could probably be done on the cheap cheap
But as it stands just like the Virtual Boy the Wii U was rushed to
Market look at its history in 2010 Nintendo of America president Reggie my body is ready commented that he felt quote
confident that the Wii home entertainment console has a very long life in front of it end quote and declare that a
Successor would not be launched in the near future and then again at e3 the 2010 presentation, Nintendo CEO
Revealed to the BBC that they would begin announcing a new council once Nintendo ran out of ideas with the current Hardware
Apparently they didn't have too many ideas left since less than a year later
The Wii U was announced as Nintendo rush to stay ahead of the console war curve
And now the game's old boy the games
Look at these launch titles all names that had appeared long before on an older quite
Frankly more high definition system games that had tablet
Functionality shoehorned in because it's a game for the Wii U damn. It just like the virtual boys 3d virtual namesake
No one's using the Wii U technology correctly not even Nintendo games like Assassin's
Creed and Cod weren't built for asymmetric gaming and Mario you
congratulations on having the tablet you get to be everyone's favorite character from the series the
Platform creator, and that's the main issue here remember when I mentioned that I'm a huge Nintendo fan
Well keep that in mind because if we're really going to be honest at its core. It's the idea of both these systems
That's flawed both the Wii U and the Virtual Boy were systems that at their best were
Innovation for innovation safe and at their worst were founded on a gimmick
Let's pursue 3d gaming for one and let's focus on asymmetric gaming for the other now don't misunderstand
There's nothing wrong in experimenting with gimmicks trying new things
Unless you're a company that wants to make money in which case there's a lot wrong with it you see
Corporations want a big fat profit as quickly as possible
Courting a game from one HD system to another easy money change some code
But porting a game from an HD system to something that requires some sort of extra screen
integration means figuring out new creative using more resources
hiring more people and oh forget it Assassin's Creed 5 Assassin's Creed 6 Assassin's Creed 1
Remastered quite frankly not everyone is as ambitious as you
Nintendo making games for a system that breaks from the norm means extra work for
third-party publishers and extra work means their bottom line gets smaller and
Nintendo you should have known this by now if you had paid attention to the Virtual Boy
No one made games for that thing
No one wanted to make games for that thing because no one knew how to make games for that thing and didn't want to invest
The time and money it took to figure it out
And why should they?
Dedicate development dollars to create a whole new way to
experience games when coming up with a few new level designs for Call of Duty space zombies will be
faster cheaper and end up selling more than any game ever
I don't know what pony and Rainbow filled world you live in Nintendo, but companies like, EA
They're not doing this for the sake of art
Third-party developers bailout of innovative systems and that leaves you Nintendo you and the creators of Waterworld
3d solely responsible for filling in the growing number of
blanks in the release calendar and looking at the slow trickle of Wii U games the
Non-existent Virtual Boy library that pressure isn't something you can handle in short the Wii U has failed for the exact
Seasons the virtual boy did 20 years ago
They're both overpriced gimmicky systems that were rushed to market with no games and no real plan for games
But there's one other side to this story one that turns this entire situation on its head sure it's easy to blame
Nintendo
But Nintendo may not be the one at fault here
We the gamers are more on that next time but for today regardless of who ends up with the final blame
Nintendo's the one who's going to have to deal with the consequences, so good luck
You're gonna need it and remember Nintendo those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it
But hey that's just a theory a game theory. Thanks for watching
the Virtual Boy the Wii U for all the hate that's piled on these systems and others like it are we really the ones to
Blame make sure you subscribe so that way you're notified when we complete this duology of videos
Do you get a supreme sense of shite and Freud a--from bashing on crappy videogame systems will excuse?
Me loyal theorists the channel all-time tens was kind enough to promote us game
theorists on their top 10 countdown of the worst video game systems
It sure would be swell of you to click right here watch their video and show them our appreciation telum matpat Sencha
But if you're the rare breed of gamer who doesn't appreciate a good top 10 countdown instead deciding to stick around here
Did you know that sound can pop your head at any moment without?
Warning if you missed our theory on Mortal Kombat's death by sound check it out here
And don't worry super endcard tournament returns next episode