On my desk sits a Nintendo device that looks like hardware stolen from a cyberpunk optical store. It’s big, it’s red and black, it sits on a tripod, it has an eyepiece and it has a Nintendo Switch2 nestled inside. Hello, Virtual Boy, you are back.
Nintendo did a lot of strange consoles over the years, but the Virtual Boy was the strangest. And the shortest lived. Released in 1995 and discontinued a year later, it lasted only a blink during my final year of college. I never really had time to consider buying one.
This would have been perfect for me, a Game Boy fan who was already in love with the idea of virtual reality back in the day. Nintendo was flirt with virtual reality In various shapes for decades, and the Virtual Boy was the biggest turning point. But it wasn’t really VR at all. It was a 3D game console in monochrome red and black, a 3D Game Boy in the shape of a tripod.
Yes, that’s a lot to put on a table.
Scott Stein/CNETI’m setting the stage because right now you can order a $100 Virtual Boy recreation which is a big, weird Switch accessory. He’s looking at me now, taking up a lot of space. It’s too big to fit in a bag. It’s actually a tabletop console, and Nintendo created this Virtual Boy viewer to make it possible to play a bunch of free, subscription-based games on Switch and Switch 2.
Is it worth your money? I would call it a collectible museum piece, not a serious piece of gaming hardware. Still, my kid stuck his head in, played 3D Wario Land, and came out declaring it was really cool. He loves old retro games. But I don’t know how often he’ll put his head back in.
I feel strangely happy playing Virtual Boy, even if its existence now seems vestigial.
Scott Stein/CNETNintendo’s first attempt at 3D now looks like a museum piece
For comparison, I took out my old one Nintendo 3DSXL He got out of the drawer where it had been stored and started it up, marveling again that Nintendo had actually made a glasses-free 3D game on a handheld once upon a time. The 3DS is a much more capable and advanced gaming system, but consider the Virtual Boy an ancient attempt to get there first.
The Virtual Boy was a red and black monochrome LED display system, a tabletop-only device that was neither portable nor connected to a television. The Nintendo Switch’s tabletop-style gaming modes feel a bit like an evolutionary tie-in to the Virtual Boy, so it’s poetic that the Switch appears in the new Virtual Boy to power the games and provide the display.
The plastic Virtual Boy is just a weird set of VR glasses for the Switch, but with a red filter on the lenses. Plus you can’t wear it. You keep your head stuck in it.
Loading the Switch 2 into the Virtual Boy: You open the top and slide it out. (This also works with a Switch.)
Scott Stein/CNETInconvenient and easy to use
All the attributes of this recreation look like the old Virtual Boy but don’t work: you can see a simulated headphone jack, a controller port, some sort of button on the top. I simply detach the plastic casing and carefully slide the switch out, then put it back in place. That’s all it is.
To control it, you use the detached Switch controllers or another Switch compatible controller. Launching the Virtual Boy app — free on the eShop, but you need a Switch Online Plus Expansion Pack account, which costs $50 a year, or $80 for a family subscription — splits the Switch’s display into two smaller, distorted screens. In Virtual Boy this looks correctly in 3D. When I’m done playing, I remove the Switch.
Large, red-lensed Virtual Boy glasses sit on a table while you use any Switch-working controller to play the games.
Scott Stein/CNETAs I said in my first handlingthe large foam-covered eyepiece is more than wide enough for large glasses and was perfect for burying my face in. Finding a comfortable angle to continue playing for a while is another challenge. The tripod-like stand included in the Virtual Boy can adjust the angle, but not as wide as I’d like. I’m a little hunched over while playing, which hurts a little. Leaning on the table with my controllers in hand helps.
The front red lens eyepiece can be removed and a later software update will allow Virtual Boy games to be played in multiple color mixes beyond red and black. Additionally, you can unscrew an internal stand to hold the Switch 2 and swap it out for an included Switch-sized stand instead. However, the Switch Lite does not work with the Virtual Boy.
Weird is my kind of indie
All you get at the moment are seven of the 16 games Nintendo has promised to release for Virtual Boy. Believe it or not, only 22 games were released for this system. The 16th will include two that have never been released before, which is a fun new release for collectors.
But what’s amazing to me now is that, immersed in these weird retro games with their pixelated NES-slash-Game Boy aesthetic in red and black, they seem strangely timely. Nintendo’s wacky, weird, almost parallel vibe resembles the retro indie aesthetic that’s been big for a while now. After all these years, is the Virtual Boy finally great?
Games like UFO 50 (a compilation of new indie games designed to look like an archive of 80s games for a console that never existed) and indie consoles like Panic Play Date (still my favorite black and white mini handheld, a home for all kinds of retro homebrew games) matches my feeling of diving into these Virtual Boy games and understanding them.
What a Virtual Boy game looks like on Switch 2 before it’s inserted into the headset.
Scott Stein/CNETWario Land is probably the best: a side-scrolling Wario game with several levels of depth, it gives me the vibe of the Game Boy Mario game. Golf has multiple holes and an aiming system, and it’s relaxed and basic (and difficult to perfect). 3D Tetris has you drop blocks into a well to fill layers, with a Tron-like puzzle feel. Red Alert’s 3D wireframe shooter design is like Star Fox’s, but boiled down to simple vector lines. Galactic Pinball has multiple tables, and it’s very old-school Nintendo 3D pinball fun. Teleroboxer is a Punch-Out with robots, with a style that also reminds me of the first Switch Arms game. And The Mansion of Innsmouth is a spooky 3D dungeon crawler (in Japanese) where you try to get to the exits before time runs out… or monsters catch you.
Remaining games coming this year include Mario Tennis, another Tetris game, a 3D wireframe racing game, a 3D reimagining of the original Mario Bros. game. called Mario Clash and a Space Invaders 3D. By the end of Nintendo’s release schedule, a good portion of Virtual Boy’s catalog will be there.
I stick my head into Virtual Boy to play. Comfortable around the eyes, but can hurt when bending over.
Justin Aclin/GolinA truly niche novelty
It’s worth it? Again, if you like the weird and retro and are intrigued by lost Nintendo 3D games, then yes. But if you’re looking for avant-garde, then no.
Keep in mind: you can buy a cheaper $25 set of cardboard glasses for the Switch that also lets you play Virtual Boy games (or use the old Lab VR Glasses Nintendo made in 2019, if you have any). This is a more sensible path. There are even unofficial emulators for Virtual Boy games on Meta Quest and Apple Vision Pro. But who said the Virtual Boy was sensible?
The cardboard Virtual Boy looks like the old Labo VR glasses. I haven’t tried it yet.
Scott Stein/CNETA Nintendo game console consisting of a big set of red glasses on a tripod is inherently absurd. And I appreciate its strange imprint on my home, because that’s exactly who I am. But it is also a testimony to Nintendo’s perpetual interest in the avant-garde of gaming. VR, 3D without glasses, AR, modular consoles… Nintendo is poking around the edges.
Is the Virtual Boy a sign that Nintendo might soon create its own VR or AR gaming system again, or as an expansion of the Switch 2? Who knows? Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo’s legendary video game designer, looked intrigued and elusive about it when I asked him about it last year. But there’s never a real way to guess where Nintendo is headed. The Virtual Boy is a museum piece that reminds us of this.