This Was Nintendo’s Most Unsuccessful Console

For as many massively successful systems as Nintendo has had (like the Game Boy, Nintendo DS, and Nintendo Switch), the company has also suffered through stumbles. Some of the minor missteps were limited to accessories, such as the clumsy e-Reader, or Nintendo 64DD that never released outside of Japan. But entire consoles have flopped too, which stings much more.

When you think of failed Nintendo platforms, the GameCube or Wii U might come to mind. During the sixth generation, the GameCube came in third place behind the wildly successful PS2 and newcomer Xbox. And the Wii U represented one of Nintendo’s darkest periods, offering many mixed-reception games for confusing hardware that wasn’t marketed well.

But the Nintendo console that had the worst run wasn’t either of these. Rather, it was a short-lived system from the mid-1990s that didn’t even last a year and sold just a fraction of the units. And as lambasted as it was, a recent comeback means it’s easier than ever to try today.

You’ll realize the Virtual Boy is unusual just by looking at it. Rather than a traditional home video game console that hooks up to a TV or a portable one you hold in your hands, the Virtual Boy falls into an awkward middle ground. It uses a viewfinder “binocular” design supported by a stand to guide you into the flagship feature: rudimentary three-dimensional visuals. The proper term for this is “stereoscopic 3D,” where a different image is shown to each of your eyes to create the illusion of 3D. And while this technology sounds impressive for the time, it was really an underbaked mess fraught with problems.

Nintendo began selling the Virtual Boy in North America in August 1995, shortly after its Japanese release. This was before the Nintendo 64 or the Game Boy Pocket revision arrived in 1996, meaning Nintendo’s hardware market had been quiet since the SNES’s North American release in 1991. March 1996 saw the last Virtual Boy game released in North America (Tetris 3D), with Nintendo silently discontinuing the system not long after. Europe never even got it. 

In June 1996, Nintendo reported that the console had sold 770,000 units. This makes it the worst-selling Nintendo console by far — the Wii U is next-worst, but still miles away at 13.6 million sold.

If you’re wondering how you’re supposed to comfortably play the Virtual Boy, you’ve happened upon the first major problem. Setting the Virtual Boy’s stand on a table meant you had to lean forward to put your face inside, which wasn’t a comfortable position to hold for long periods. Tilting the stand could help, or you could get creative with various angles like lying down. A strap would have been great, but Nintendo never released one. It’s not a good sign when simply figuring out how to start using a system is a challenge.

For power, the Virtual Boy used six AA batteries in the back of the controller (or an optional adapter for a wall plug that slid onto the back of the controller instead). Its controller had a unique double D-pad design, which several games utilized. However, the A/B and Start/Select buttons having the exact same shape made it easy to forget which was which, since you couldn’t easily look down to see them.

There were also complaints at the time about not being connected to the people around you while playing, since the Virtual Boy was a one-person experience. Others in the house couldn’t watch you or easily pass the controller around. It clearly wasn’t a portable console either; using this in a car would have been ridiculous.

The Virtual Boy’s discomfort doesn’t end with getting your face into the device. Once you put your eyes up to the screen, another one of its huge issues becomes apparent: the screen is only in black and red. According to Nintendo, adding full color would have made production far too expensive. The color palette commonly caused eye strain and headaches, especially given how close your eyes were to the screen.

Aside from a boring single color, the Virtual Boy’s 3D display technology made people feel nauseous. Internally, the system used oscillating mirrors to reflect a single-pixel-wide line of LEDs and create the images you see while playing (this video from The Slow Mo Guys illustrates it well). Because everyone’s eyes are different, the unit had a slider on top to adjust the distance between the mirrors. I’m sure many people didn’t do this properly (or at all), which contributed to the eye and head sickness.

Nintendo was aware of these problems, so the Virtual Boy had a built-in reminder to take a break every 15 minutes or so. The longer you went without stopping, the more likely you were to feel unwell. It’s hard to get absorbed in an experience when you have to keep breaking the immersion.

Perhaps people would have forgiven the hurdles to using the Virtual Boy if the games had been worth playing. Unfortunately, almost all the system’s titles were unremarkable. Many were hurt by the lackluster graphics of primitive wireframes and vast pools of black. Releases also fell into repetitive genres like sports, arcade, and puzzle. Plus, Nintendo’s best-known franchises were largely absent; Zelda, Metroid, Kirby, and many others were nowhere to be seen.

A few Virtual Boy games were highlights, but hardly justified the price of the console. Teleroboxer had a lot of the same “puzzle-fighting” elements as Punch-Out!!, while the pack-in title Mario’s Tennis was a good showcase for the 3D effects (and is the first game in the Mario Tennis series). But because of their short lengths and basic gameplay, nearly the entire library felt like tech demos instead of must-have releases.

Nearly everyone agrees Virtual Boy Wario Land is the best game for the system, featuring crisp graphics and a neat gimmick where you can swap between background and foreground layers. It’s a brief experience, but a fun one — that’s unfortunately stuck on Virtual Boy.

Clearly, the Virtual Boy hit shelves in an incomplete state; it was rushed out so Nintendo could focus on the upcoming N64. Unlike the Wii, where everyone who tried one wanted their own, people trialing the Virtual Boy at a friend’s house or through a Blockbuster rental promo realized how shallow it was. Its competition didn’t help the situation, either. In North America, the PlayStation arrived a month after the Virtual Boy (in September 1995) and offered far superior 3D graphics.

Aside from a few minor references in other games, Nintendo was mostly silent about the Virtual Boy until September 2025, when it revealed Virtual Boy games would come to the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack service. Place your Switch or Switch 2 into either a cardboard slot or a replica of the original Virtual Boy and you’ll experience what the Virtual Boy was like. Two images are displayed on your system’s screen, with lenses creating the 3D effect. Your Switch controller of choice is compatible, while an August 2026 update enabled changing the color to something other than red.

The Expansion Pack is $50/year (there’s no option to pay monthly), with the replica model costing $100 and the cardboard version at $25. There’s no option to disable the 3D effect, so you can’t play these games on the TV. That’s quite a cost to try such a limited library of games, but those curious about Nintendo’s biggest flop should still have some fun with it.