Current Events > The Virtual Boy is Nintendo's worst mistake.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Hot take: The Virtual Boy is Nintendo's worst mistake, worse than dropping out of the SNES CD-ROM deal with Sony. At least that failed deal gave us YouTube Poop, which would shape internet culture in the mid to late 2000s. The only thing that came out of the Virtual Boy was severe eyestrain.

VGAddict90 posted...

Hot take: The Virtual Boy is Nintendo's worst mistake,

Not that hot a take

I dont know about that. Worst is which fuckup theyve done has cost them the most money.

Contenders are:

1. Virtual Boy
2. Using 32 MB cartridges for the N64 instead of the one or more 700 MB CDs their competitors had and screwing themselves out of the Final Fantasy franchise and a ton of other 3rd parties in so doing.
3. Using 1.44 GB minidiscs for the GameCube instead of the 4.7 GB DVDs their competitors were using and again screwing themselves out of a ton of 3rd parties in so doing.

Virtual Boy is probably more of a loss than the others, but its impossible to know how much more money theyd have made if they werent stubborn control freaks for 2 generations.

Their worst mistake was abandoning the Wii U Pro's layout

No their worst mistake eviscerating Rare

PraetorXyn posted...

I dont know about that. Worst is which fuckup theyve done has cost them the most money.

Contenders are:
1. Virtual Boy
2. Using 32 MB cartridges for the N64 instead of the one or more 700 MB CDs their competitors had and screwing themselves out of the Final Fantasy franchise and a ton of other 3rd parties in so doing.
3. Using 1.44 GB minidiscs for the GameCube instead of the 4.7 GB DVDs their competitors were using and again screwing themselves out of a ton of 3rd parties in so doing.
Virtual Boy is probably more of a loss than the others, but its impossible to know how much more money theyd have made if they werent stubborn control freaks for 2 generations.

I feel like using cartridges for the N64 was more of a "the last straw" for third parties than anything. Square was already unhappy with Nintendo for canceling the SNES CD-ROM project because Secret of Mana was going to release on it, so they had to redo the whole game to make it fit on a cartridge.

VGAddict90 posted...

I feel like using cartridges for the N64 was more of a "the last straw" for third parties than anything. Square was already unhappy with Nintendo for canceling the SNES CD-ROM project because Secret of Mana was going to release on it, so they had to redo the whole game to make it fit on a cartridge.

It wasnt even that, it was a matter of possible and not possible. A huge number of PS1 games simply wouldnt fit on a cartridge even if you cut out all the cutscenes and made the music shit quality. Square literally showed them a 3D tech demo of a FF6 battle or something and begged them to change their minds, as a 3D Final Fantasy wouldnt fit on there.

Tyranthraxus posted...

No their worst mistake eviscerating Rare

They didn't own Rare, and Rare let themselves get bought by Microsoft. The worst things they did to Rare was what happened to Dinosaur Planet and deciding against publishing some later N64 releases like Perfect Dark and Conker's Bad Fur Day, which didn't help their relationship.

PraetorXyn posted...

Using 32 MB cartridges for the N64 instead of the one or more 700 MB CDs their competitors had and screwing themselves out of the Final Fantasy franchise and a ton of other 3rd parties in so doing.

Capcom managed to release a superior version of their 2-disc game on a 64 MB cartridge, with higher resolution and higher quality audio.
I would say that a worse sin was to hide a high polygon mode behind microcodes that they never shared. Factor 5 took their time writing their own microcodes, which resulted in some of the best looking N64 games.

VGAddict90 posted...

Hot take: The Virtual Boy is Nintendo's worst mistake

That's not a hot take. Everyone knows that the VB was a huge flop that was released well before it was even ready for consumers.

Foppe posted...

Capcom managed to release a superior version of their 2-disc game on a 64 MB cartridge, with higher resolution and higher quality audio.
I would say that a worse sin was to hide a high polygon mode behind microcodes that they never shared. Factor 5 took their time writing their own microcodes, which resulted in some of the best looking N64 games.

No they didnt. Its physically impossible unless they massively fucked up the audio on the PS version, as CDs supported CD quality audio.

PraetorXyn posted...

No they didnt. Its physically impossible unless they massively fucked up the audio on the PS version, as CDs supported CD quality audio.

Oh sweet summer child, just because the console supported CD Audio doesnt mean that every game used it.
Resident Evil 2 actually used Qsound instead of CD Audio. The N64 version even used higher quality Dolby Surround

Foppe posted...

Oh sweet summer child, just because the console supported CD Audio doesnt mean that every game used it.
Resident Evil 2 actually used Qsound instead of CD Audio. The N64 version even used higher quality Dolby Surround

There you go, they massively fucked up like I said.

MarthGoomba posted...

Their worst mistake was abandoning the Wii U Pro's layout

QFT

Nintendo needs to bring this back as their version of the PRO controller.

This would give Nintendo's controller a "Unique Identity" / "Layout" compared to Sony's & MS' controllers

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/0/0a280ca6.jpg

I'm going to argue the opposite. Yes, they made some mistakes, but they were trying at the time to push something that wasn't done before. I would argue that the Switch OLED is their worst mistake. The OLED screen definitely was an improvement, but if we compare it to the jump between the 3DS and the New 3DS, the transition is laughable.

They upgraded the external appearance, which is fine, but the internals were left almost untouched, outside of a better battery. It's still running the same 4 gb of memory, when even the base Steam Deck is running 16. It doesn't need to run 16, but at the very least 8. You can buy a handheld device and emulate Switch games for the same price and they can in theory run better than natively on the Switch itself.

Ivany2008 posted...

I'm going to argue the opposite. Yes, they made some mistakes, but they were trying at the time to push something that wasn't done before. I would argue that the Switch OLED is their worst mistake. The OLED screen definitely was an improvement, but if we compare it to the jump between the 3DS and the New 3DS, the transition is laughable.

They upgraded the external appearance, which is fine, but the internals were left almost untouched, outside of a better battery. It's still running the same 4 gb of memory, when even the base Steam Deck is running 16. It doesn't need to run 16, but at the very least 8. You can buy a handheld device and emulate Switch games for the same price and they can in theory run better than natively on the Switch itself.

Ill agree the Switch OLED is dumb because look at the new OLED Steam Deck:
HDR OLED
Better cooling
Lighter weight
30-50% more battery life
WiFi upgraded to 6E
Double the amount of internal storage for the flagship, more storage for the same money for the lower variants

All for the same price.

But the Switch OLED isnt a mistake because people still bought it in droves no matter how stupid it is.

Ivany2008 posted...

I'm going to argue the opposite. Yes, they made some mistakes, but they were trying at the time to push something that wasn't done before. I would argue that the Switch OLED is their worst mistake. The OLED screen definitely was an improvement, but if we compare it to the jump between the 3DS and the New 3DS, the transition is laughable.

They upgraded the external appearance, which is fine, but the internals were left almost untouched, outside of a better battery. It's still running the same 4 gb of memory, when even the base Steam Deck is running 16. It doesn't need to run 16, but at the very least 8. You can buy a handheld device and emulate Switch games for the same price and they can in theory run better than natively on the Switch itself.

Where was the mistake? Most Switches sold are now OLED. It made Nintendo money. It wasn't ever intended to be anything more than what it is.

McSame_as_Bush posted...

It wasn't ever intended to be anything more than what it is.

A Cash Grab!

ITT: one of the most lukewarm takes ever

Nah it was giving pichu the ability to surf

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Almost certainly, but I was saying the market had grown enough by then the losses may have been worse. Plus, thats the last gen Nintendo tried to be competitive hardware wise, so I figured they themselves may have considered it more of a failure as they did a 180 after that.

not keeping FF7

fucked their future forever

Why would they release that. Like you don't have to a marketing person, a tech guru. You can just be a person with eyes. To know that is bad .

cjsdowg posted...

Why would they release that. Like you don't have to a marketing person, a tech guru. You can just be a person with eyes. To know that is bad .

My guess is the sunk cost fallacy. Certainly doesnt seem to have hurt their reputation.

I'm pretty sure virtually (no pun intended) all gamers agree that the Virtua Boy was the worst thing Nintendo ever made

McSame_as_Bush posted...

Where was the mistake? Most Switches sold are now OLED. It made Nintendo money. It wasn't ever intended to be anything more than what it is.

Reading is hard isn't it. The mistake is that Nintendo needed to upgrade the internal components to allow games to run smoother. They didn't and just made the screen shiny. Now everyone is banking on them to release the Switch 2 to fix things they should have done the first time.

When I was a kid the local Toys R' Us had a Virtual Boy demo station set up. I played a couple of games for maybe 10 minutes, and my eyes burned and I got a headache.

lol nope

PraetorXyn posted...

There you go, they massively fucked up like I said.

Very, very few PS1 games used CD audio.

Trumble posted...

Very, very few PS1 games used CD audio.

Yes, because WAV files are huge. But 700 MB still gives you a lot more space to play with than 64 MB does, so any instance in which the 64 MB storage ended up with better audio than the 700 MB one means someone fucked up hard.

Kamen_Rider_Blade posted...

Nintendo needs to bring this back as their version of the PRO controller.

Eh, it was a good piece of hardware but I'm not a fan of symmetrical control sticks. Same reason I don't care for Sony's controllers. For the vast majority of use cases, the staggered sticks just feel better to play. >_>

Can't be the worst if Nintendo didn't believe in it. Wii u tops it as they thought it would work.

Kim_Seong-a posted...

Eh, it was a good piece of hardware but I'm not a fan of symmetrical control sticks. Same reason I don't care for Sony's controllers. For the vast majority of use cases, the staggered sticks just feel better to play. >_>

For me, Symmetrical sticks feel better, doesn't matter if it's higher up or lower down.

The advantage of higher up Analog Sticks is that there's no chance of thumbs colliding.

PraetorXyn posted...

Yes, because WAV files are huge. But 700 MB still gives you a lot more space to play with than 64 MB does, so any instance in which the 64 MB storage ended up with better audio than the 700 MB one means someone fucked up hard.

Was N64's audio hardware better? (Genuine question.) That could account for it; even infinite storage won't do much if the hardware outputting the sound is inferior.

Kinda like how a natively 1080p image displayed on a 1080p monitor will look better than a natively 8K image displayed on a 480p monitor.

VGAddict90 posted...

Hot take: The Virtual Boy is Nintendo's worst mistake, worse than dropping out of the SNES CD-ROM deal with Sony. At least that failed deal gave us YouTube Poop, which would shape internet culture in the mid to late 2000s. The only thing that came out of the Virtual Boy was severe eyestrain.

https://youtu.be/JJdd8zYVPJw?si=9WviVYcwrRDmRL3U

Trumble posted...

Was N64's audio hardware better? (Genuine question.) That could account for it; even infinite storage won't do much if the hardware outputting the sound is inferior.

Kinda like how a natively 1080p image displayed on a 1080p monitor will look better than a natively 8K image displayed on a 480p monitor.

I honestly dont know, but from memory I think they were at least comparable. Its not like one sounded like radio from the 40s and one sounded like radio from the 90s.

Ivany2008 posted...

Reading is hard isn't it. The mistake is that Nintendo needed to upgrade the internal components to allow games to run smoother. They didn't and just made the screen shiny. Now everyone is banking on them to release the Switch 2 to fix things they should have done the first time.

That's fine. But the topic isn't about what people wish Nintendo had done differently. It's about mistakes. For Nintendo, it's a clear win. They got a bump in sales and other than a few grumblings from the media and gamers, their reputation was unharmed.

Trumble posted...

Was N64's audio hardware better? (Genuine question.) That could account for it; even infinite storage won't do much if the hardware outputting the sound is inferior.

Kinda like how a natively 1080p image displayed on a 1080p monitor will look better than a natively 8K image displayed on a 480p monitor.

The good news is that the N64 supported Audio CD quality.
The bad news is that the N64 lacked a dedicated sound chip and it was handled by the CPU. Higher quality audio means less CPU used for things like graphics, and the average player wants graphics over audio.
Now if we look at the first revision of the PS1, then it had an extremely high quality DAC, one that could rival the ones in much costly HiFi audio systems. Audiophiles even tracked down this revision of the PS1 because it gave a higher quality of audio than some of their audio setups.
Sony changed it to a lower quality DAC in later revisions for two reasons.
1 to save money.
2 they realized that 98% of the gamers used their TV speakers. TV speakers were not made for high quality sound, so nobody would notice the difference. And that is one of the reasons why many games, even on the PS2, had lower quality audio even if they had space for higher quality, it wasnt worth it because most people wouldnt hear the difference.

This is the definition of a cold take, TC.

McSame_as_Bush posted...

That's fine. But the topic isn't about what people wish Nintendo had done differently. It's about mistakes. For Nintendo, it's a clear win. They got a bump in sales and other than a few grumblings from the media and gamers, their reputation was unharmed.

No offense, but most people aren't even aware that there are better built handhelds and they are sheep to mass marketing. Oh, new OLED console, gotta buy it. Christ I'm guilty of that myself. Just look at Pokemon games, they still sell despite the massive drop in quality control.

Skyrim proved that little point.