STEVEN BOYER

AVirtual Failure: Evaluating the Success of Nintendo's

Virtual Boy

n 15 November 1994 Nintendo unveiledits newest video game console at the an-nual Shoshinkai Show. The Virtual Boysported 3-D graphics in a unique tripod-

mounted unit that required gamers to immerse themselvesin the dual-screen display. While Nintendo hoped thatthis system would be the next big thing in the gamingworld, initial response was notably underwhelming, withreviewers noting a number of glaring problems inherentin the console's design (Semrad). Despite an extravagantadvertising campaign and revolutionary partnership deals,the system failed to take off with the general public. Gamesannounced for the system at the May 1996 Electronic En-tertainment Expo less than a year after the console's launchwere never released, with Nintendo quietly allowing thesystem to disappear without any formal announcement.

Historical accounts of the Virtual Boy are even shorterthan Nintendo's support of the system, concisely dismiss-ing it as a failure because of its lack of sales, which isgenerally attributed to problems of technical implementa-tion and Nintendo's preoccupation with the impendingNintendo 64 system. Regardless of the reason, the con-sensus among critics is that the system was an undeniablefauure. Nintendo chairman Howard Lincoln put it simply:"[I]t just failed" (qtd. in Sheff 450). However, the techno-logical and ideological goals of the system, to create a newimmersive gaming platform with the Utopian aspirationsof virtual reality, have lived on far beyond the console'smainstream presence. This attempt still resonates withdiehard fans and collectors, who continue to flock to thesystem over a decade after its release, suggesting a culturalsignificance much larger than that implied by critics.

These contradictory readings of the Virtual Boy suggestthat the significance of technological "failures" and, evenmore broadly, the definition of failure itself are character-ized by a negotiable fluidity that accommodates a variety

of influences. AU cultural objects are necessarily overde-termined and, especially in the case of those intended formass consumption, received by a disparate audience ofindividuals composed of contradictory and competingsubjectivities. In the case of the Virtual Boy the disconnectbetween critics and niche fans brings up issues of discur-sive power, questioning who has the authority to makedeclarations of failure and the circulation to solidify thesedeclarations in wider discourse. Furthermore, the inabilityof market performance to adequately explain the console'sposition in Nintendo's wider development and marketingstrategies or its connection to media audiences' fantasiesof technology underscores the necessity for a multifacetedapproach to culture. Rather than signaling the endpoint fora technology, the label of'failure" indicates an opportunityto glean further insight concerning these interconnectedindustrial and consumer ambiguities, which, emphasizedby this specific moment of conflict, provide the broadercontext within which the Virtual Boy exists.

As Kenneth Lipartito suggests, narratives of technologi-cal change ought not confine themselves to individualinstances of change but rather take into considerationsociocultural and historical factors in order to place aninstance of technological innovation into a contextualframework (76-77). Failed technologies in this view "per-sist well beyond their material life," as new inventionscome into being as projected ideas rather than functionalobjects, playing a significant role in how society com-prehends the "open-ended technological world" thatsurpasses the utilitarian evolutionary models (Lipartito57). By viewing the Virtual Boy as part of an expansivetechnological narrative, the device transcends the imageof the isolated miscalculation to become an intersectionof societal desires, expectations, and anxieties concern-ing technological change that resonate far beyond anyindividual innovation.

The Velvet Light Trap, Number 64, Fall 2009 ©2009 by the University ofTexas Press, RO. Box 7819, Austin,TX 78713-7819

24 A Virtual Failure

These societal forces implicate both the industrialcircumstances responsible for physically creating the newpiece of technology as well as the cultural contributionand response to the new development. Thus, neither atop-down view determined by market response nor asolely bottom-up, socially constructed depiction of theVirtual Boy can sufficiendy account for the interplay offorces involved in its development within a technologicalnarrative.With regard to interactive media, Stephen Kline,Nick Dyer-Witheford, and Greig de Peuter's"three circuitsof interactivity" model extracts technology, marketing,and culture from the more general "circuit of culture"model as the three major areas of significance for a gamingsystem Hke the Virtual Boy (50). In conceptualizing eachcircuit as a "dynamic process" defined by negotiations andfeedback, the system as a whole works to "bind humanagents and artifacts in cycles of creation, consumption, andcommunication," giving audiences an equal role in themeaning-making process w ithout reducing the signifi-cance of industrial forces (Kline, Dyer-Witheford, and dePeuter 50—5 2). This model extends the reach of a culturalartifact beyond its period of public visibility to encompassthe interaction between producers and consumers in de-veloping a new technology, the branding and advertisingcampaigns that position the object in public discourse bothbefore and after its release, and the variety of ways culturalgroups receive the new technology both immediately afterdissemination and well after it has faded from mainstreammemory.

Using these three circuits as a starting point, I intendto reevaluate the perceived failure of the Virtual Boyby looking at how technology, marketing, and culturefigure into the larger technological narrative governingthe resultant interactive experience. The widely acceptedlabeling ofthe system as a failure provides an opportunityto examine this broader narrative, locating connectionswithin wider cultural shifts involving the elusory natureof gaming audiences, industrial approaches to these audi-ences' technological fantasies, and the modes of interactionbetween media consumers and producers.When industrialforces are able to adequately respond to audience desires,the result is often envisioned as transparent success, im-pUcidy homogenizing consumer variations and suggestingthat encapsulation of these variations is not only possiblebut necessary for success. A failure, on the other hand,confronts the impossibility of this task, acknowledgingthe impreciseness of marketing's attempt to address those

consumer desires that lie just out of reach. Furthermore,failure connotes a missed opportunity, providing a temporalelement that shifts attention away from the object itselfand onto the context influencing consumer desires at aspecific moment in time. Thus, a "failure" like the VirtualBoy provides far more fertile ground for evaluating culturalshifts than a similar "successftil" console, creating a site forevaluating the industrial struggle over addressing audiencesat this crucial point in gaming history.

Playing with Power: Cultivating Audiencesthrough Technology

Before Nintendo invested in the video game market, thecompany found its greatest successes in novelty gadgets,capitalizing on consumer desires for fun, innovative piecesof technology. In 1969 the ambitious president of thecompany, HiroshiYamauchi, estabhshed a Games Divisionand gave maintenance worker GunpeiYokoi free rein todevelop a product for the holiday season (Sheff 21).Yokoiended up creating a string of profitable novelty devices,including a claw device, a "love tester," and a light-gun thatled to a nationwide indoor skeet-shooting craze (Sheff22-26) .This focus on innovative novelty gadgets continuedthroughout Nintendo's expansion into the video gamemarket, with every major system relying heavuy on aninnovative new approach to gaming, often through theuse of a peripheral device.

This can be seen as the result of an industrial mode oftechnological development specific to Nintendo.Yamauchicreated a system of individual engineering units, dubbedR&D 1,2, and 3, with the head engineers given creativefreedom. Competition and creativity were the establishedmotivating factors for new development rather than marketresearch or sales numbers.This encouraged radical develop-ments, with each team trying to come up w ith the mostinnovative product possible, whue allowing the engineersto experiment in multiple directions. Yokoi's R&D 1,for example, developed the portable Game & Watch andGame Boy systems along vwth the complex gadgetry ofthe Virtual Boy as well as the hit game Metroid, indicatingthat even software programming fell into the hands of theseengineers (Sheff 39-41).

With this type of system in place, it is no surprise thatNintendo eventually developed a system Hke the VirtualBoy, which is essentially a console version of previous at-tempts at 3-D goggle peripherals. 3-D technology is cer-

Steven Boyer 25

tainly an amhidous move for any company, butYamauchi'sR&D structure encouraged developers to push the hound-aries in exacdy this sort of way. Nintendo's developmentsystem anticipated wdd expenditures on ideas that wouldnever come to fruition, gambUng that the few ideas thatdid work would recoup the cost for those technologiesthat never made it out of R&D.

Nintendo's only potential misstep, then, coidd he inits decision to take the system to the puhUc rather thanabandon it in-house hefore sinking money into advertisingand mass production. However, hased on the company'shistory in the gaming industry, a console with this typeof focus on the peripheral would have heen expected tofind popular appeal. Whde the Nintendo EntertainmentSystem (NES) is generally considered one of the mostsuccessfiil gaming consoles in the medium's history, initialresponse to the console in the United States was tepid. Infact, it was the peripheral gadgets that proved to he thebiggest seUing point at early demonstrations.Yokoi adaptedhis earUer Ught-gun gadget for use wath Duck Hunt andcreated the ROB, or Rohotic Operating Buddy, a smallrobot that moved along with games Uke Gyromite. TheROB in particular, which was deemed the "#5 Smart-est Moment in Gaming" hy onUne site Gamespy ("TheLitde R.O.B.otThat Could"), overshadowed the system'score gaming potential at early trade shows despite heinga simple novelty item with Utde use heyond these initialgames (Sheff 160—63). So powerfiil was the response tothese gadgets that they became the focus of the initialadvertising campaign (Sheff 167), v^th Nintendo evenhiring the company behind the success ofTeddy Ruxpinto manage NES sales (Moran). Peripherals, therefore,played a major role in the console's ultimate success in theAmerican marketplace and helped launch the companyinto a dominant market position, a privdeged position itretained with future systems.

In Nintendo's experience these types of gadgets capturedpopular interest and, more importandy, consumer doUars.To this end, Nintendo has continued to stress the engagingaspect of innovative peripherals, releasing the Rumble Pakfor the Nintendo 64 (N64) to bring a tactue experienceto video ganies and, over a decade later, focusing its new-est console, the Wü, entirely around the experience of amotion-sensing controUer. This "Wiimote" is structuredaround an obsession with the peripheral, designed spe-cifically to aUow for further modification, including yetanother version of the Zapper gun, a steering wheel, and

insertion into the hulky Guitar Hero controller. This focuson the peripheral and its incorporation into Nintendo'slarger marketing strategy has led the Wii to astronomicalsales, outselling both competing systems, the Xhox 360and the PlayStation 3, almost every month since its releaseon the worldwide market and sending the corporation'sstock skyrocketing (Alpeyev).

This continuity suggests that the economic fadure ofthe Virtual Boy did Utde to alter the centraUty of the gad-get in Nintendo's development and marketing strategies.Instead, the Virtual Boy may have actuaUy contrihuted tothis tradition, serving as a bold statement of Nintendo'sdedication to innovative gaming concepts. In fact, PeterMain, Nintendo's thenVP of marketing, saw the systemas having a "focus on breakthrough technology consistentwith our ongoing heUefs that you gotta do it difïerendy,and the difference has to be a real perceived difference bythe consumer" (qtd. in Sheff 449) .Therefore, the console'srelease could more appropriately he seen as a justifiahle ex-penditure of money, contributing to the company's brandimage as technological innovators in a form of alternativemarketing.

The logic of this type of radical marketing is particularlyjustifiahle when viewed in relation to the gaming marketin the mid-1990s. Nintendo had heen extremely fortunateto enter the U.S. market with the NES in the period im-mediately following the collapse of the American homegaming market, which was due in large part to productsaturation, leading to Nintendo's unrivaled dominance(Sheff 158-59). However, hy the time the Super NintendoEntertainment System (SNES) came around, competitionwas emerging, most notably in the Sega Genesis. Sega'sSonic the Hedgehog was already a smash hit by the time of theSNES launch, and Nintendo's early move into handheldgaming with the Game Boy had by now been emulatedby Sega's Game Gear. Whde both companies were ahleto reach widespread commercial success, hy this pointNintendo had lost its clear advantage in the Americangames market (Sheff 363—64).

With pressure from Genesis, Nintendo was forced torethink corporate strategy, and an even deeper confUctloomed in the batde for the next console generation. Notonly was Sega touting the Saturn as the next big system,but new competitors Uke Sony arrived with the impres-sive PlayStation. Nintendo responded to these upcomingthreats by sinking money into the N64 and promotingits high-profde partnership with Sdicon Graphics Inc.

26 AVirtual Failure

(famous for Hollywood special effects) as an indicator ofthe revolutionary leap Nintendo claimed it was about tomake. However, development issues delayed the systemwell beyond the release dates of its competitors' systems,with gamers adopting the PlayStation over the lacklusterSaturn (Sheff 450-51).

At the same time, Nintendo was attempting to gainlost ground firom Sega by redefming its brand identity.Sega had dethroned Nintendo through aggressive adver-tising campaigns that branded the company as hip andcool with teens.This marked a distinctive shift away fromNintendo's previous focus on children. Initial marketingfor the NES involved two commercials, one targeted atchildren age eight to fifteen and the other at their parents,clearly situating children and young teens as the targetdemographic (Moran). Similarly, early campaigns for theSNES focused on young gamers, developing partnershipswith Kellogg's cereal (Horton), billing games as "family"entertainment and pushing Mario Paint as an educationaltitle (Fitzgerald,"Family Fun"). Nintendo even cultivatedthis family image through game content, famously insist-ing on a censored version of Mortal Kombat that replacedblood with "sweat."

Sega's version of Mortal Kombat, on the other hand,included all the blood and fatalities. Unlike Nintendo,Sega embraced a slightly older demographic and pushedits Genesis console as new and hip. Sega developed ad-vertising campaigns "heavily targeting blood-thirsty olderteens and adults," with new high-tech advancements likeSega CD and, to a lesser degree, a virtual reality peripheralplaying a key role in this brand image (Fitzgerald, "Fam-ily Fun"). Early in 1994 Sega overtook Nintendo as theindustry leader, cultivating this new market demographicby linking edgy advertising and high-tech products. Segaintensified this marketing trend for the release ofthe moretechnically advanced Sega Saturn in May 1995. In Europeadvertisements showing the Saturn logo accompanied onlyby the words "Aural Sex" epitomized the company's tacticof "aiming at the 18-25 category, and . . . hoping that the14-to-18-year-olds will aspire to understand that category"(Siler). In the United States Sega made similar attemptsto cultivate this "cool" mature image in such marketingstrategies as sending the Saturn along with the LoUapaloozaconcert tour (Fitzgerald,"Events").

Sega's success in exploiting this new market demo-graphic sent the recently demoted Nintendo into a mar-keting frenzy. The company called on advertising firm

Leo Burnett U.S.A. for a new brand image (Fitzgerald,"Nintendo's Task"). Burnett's answer was the "Play ItLoud" campaign, a bold series of advertisements that try"to talk to that 15- or 16-year-old in a way they can totallyrelate to" via aggressive music, tattoos, and slang (Elliott).This emulation of Sega's marketing strategy acknowledgedthe significance of this older demographic in gaining in-dustry dominance but marked a major shift in Nintendo'starget audience firom previous consoles. Significantly, thisshift in audiences was explicitly linked to technology, withthe profitable older audiences presumably interested in themore high-tech gadgets and increasing polygon counts,while the younger, less technological savvy and less profit-able audience segment quickly fell out of favor.

It was during this transitional period, amid major in-dustry and audience shifts, that development began on theVirtual Boy. In an early interview about the system GunpeiYokoi specifically positioned the Virtual Boy as a reactionto the PlayStation and the Saturn, claiming that "manypeople who have seen the demonstrations of these so-callednext-generation machines have already said that they justcan't understand what the difference is between them andthe 16bit machines" ("An Audience" 46) .Though this mayhave been the case, Nintendo certainly didn't feel that thiswas necessarily a problem, as it was investing heavily in thesimilar N64 system.

Instead, as Yokoi also reveals in the interview, the N64was being developed solely by R&D 3 and Silicon Graphics,leaving the two other R&D teams to find a different wayto advance gaming ("An Audience" 45^6 ) .Yokoi's teamdecided that the best strategy was to develop a technologythat none of the other companies had and that would beincredibly difficult to copy, giving Nintendo the edge inthe race for innovation. This focus on the complexities ofthe technology governing the Virtual Boy is emphasizedthroughout Nintendo's discourse on the system. Yokoihimself spent most of the Next Generation interview dis-cussing the technological specificities ofthe system, as domost magazine articles devoted to the system. The veryfirst article on the system in Nintendo Power, the internallypublished promotional fan magazine, looks solely at thetechnological aspects of the system, explaining how 3-Dtechnology contributes to the gaming experience but withminimal discussion of what games the audience couldexpect ("VR 32").

Press releases concerning the system similarly focus onthe technological aspects ofthe console, neglecting games

Steven Boyer 27

or their content.The first major announcement ofthe sys-tem's American unveiling at the 1995 Consumer ElectronicShow does not mention the actual games for the consoleat all, only stating that developers are "working on excit-ing new game concepts for the Virtual Boy" ("NintendoIntroduces" 2).The entirety of this press release is devotedto touting the technical sophistication ofthe system whileemphasizing the exclusive arrangement with ReflectionTechnology for its Scanned Linear Array displays. Whilethis release certainly plays up the companies' agreement,Nintendo devoted a second entire press release to thecompany's investment in Reflection. This release makesNintendo's interest in the company much more transpar-ent, including a quote firom presidentYamauchi declaringthat "our licensing agreement with Reflection wül makeNintendo the only video game manufacturer with accessto its unique technology" ("Nintendo Announces" 2). Atthe Electronic Entertainment Expo a few months laterNintendo released another press release furthering thisfocus on exclusive agreements, touting the Virtual Boyalongside the SNES games Killer Instinct and Donkey KongCountry 2: Diddy's Kong Quest, both developed by Rare toshowcase the Advanced Computer Modeling technologythat had made the first Donkey Kong Country a success("Nintendo Unveils"). The Virtual Boy is only the mostextreme example of this focus on exclusive innovativetechnologies, with other similar partnerships contributingto a broader corporate strategy.

Ironically, while Nintendo lost its top spot to Sega in themid-1990s by failing to appeal to an older male teen audi-ence and was only able to regain momentum by makingedgy ads, the company's recent success with the Wii comeslargely due to a reversal of this tacdc. Advertising for the Wiishows young children, families, and older gamers using thesystem, promoting wholesome social gaming over the edgycontent pioneered by Sega. Furthermore, rather than pro-mote technological advancements through sophisticatedHD graphics or powerful processors, Nintendo showcasesthe unique peripherals that fit neatly intoYokoi's lineage,allowing the company to keep hardware costs down whilestill providing new and exciting technology that conformsto this newly broadened target demographic.

The fact that both the Virtual Boy and the Wii emerge atmoments of dramatic redefinitions ofthe gaming audienceand address these audiences in very direct ways indicatesthe parallels between consoles. The Virtual Boy in manyways is a pure appeal to the older male teen audience that

in the mid-1990s was thought to desire edgy content andboundary-pushing technology, while the Wii exists as asymbol of a new appeal to previously ignored audienceswho were thought to desire a social experience, usingtechnology that contributes to this experience withoutbecoming intimidating. Both systems creatively adopt andadapt Nintendo's historical strategy of focusing on theperipheral, yet, despite these similarities, the Virtual Boywas abandoned shortly after release, while the Wii rocketedNintendo far into the lead in the current console race.With all the parallels between these two consoles, clearlythe supposed failure of the Virtual Boy did not promptNintendo to radically adjust its development strategiesand actually seems more likely to have direcdy influencedcorporate strategy, indicating the necessity to look beyondmarket performance in determining success.

Similarly, the other major players in the gaming worldadopted strategies associated with the Virtual Boy to vary-ing degrees and with varying levels of effectiveness. Sega,pioneers of edgy teen advertising for video games, contin-ued using this strategy to market the Saturn throughout theVirtual Boy's appearance on the market, tying this image tothe technology governing the system as well as to high-techattachments like Internet Saturn. In this case Sega mighthave paid more heed to the precedent set by the VirtualBoy, as the company lost its top spot to Sony and exited theconsole scene shordy after.With the PlayStation, Sony re-sisted "hype, snazzy ads, and flowery promises" (Fitzgerald,"Marketing 100"), perhaps noting the Virtual Boy's difli-culty delivering on its marketing appeals, but continued tounk male teen audiences to advanced technology. Despitethe stated goal of targeting even older audiences, Aivisi,Narduzzo, and Zamarian suggest that Sony's success withthis expanded demographic was, among other factors, anaccidental byproduct of its inability to Unk any proposedmascot to the console (620). Sony's intentions, however,mark a continuation of Nintendo's and Sega's focus on theestablished teen audience; Sony's more restrained adver-tising merely left room for new audiences. However, noother company has attempted such a pure peripheral basedconsole since the Virtual Boy, with Nintendo's own Wiiserving as the closest example, signaling reluctance on thepart ofthe competitors to follow too closely in the VirtualBoy's technological footsteps, for better or worse.

By viewing the Virtual Boy as an intersection of thetechnological forces driving corporate history, develop-ment structure, and marketing discourse, the system is in no

28 AVirtual Failure

way an aberration. Rather, the console exists as a predicatedattempt to further Nintendo's branded image as techno-logical innovator, compete with the technology-toutingnewcomer Sega, and address changes in the acknowledgedgaming audience, all of which the console arguably accom-plished, at least to some degree. Nintendo's redefinition ofits target audience through advertisements directed at edgyolder teens signals a major change in the composition ofgaming audiences in the mid-1990s as well as acknowl-edging the perilous interactive media landscape no longersimply dominated by Sega but awaiting Sony's PlayStation.Technology underscores both of these trends, with eachmedia corporation hoping to leverage its technologicalsophistication to draw in the most profitable consumers.The Virtual Boy's most significant departure, then, revolvesnot around the specificities of the technology but in whatexperience this technology produces for its audience.

A New Red World

Nintendo's attempts to appear as the gaming market's mostinnovative company led directly to the promotion of theVirtual Boy as a radical break from previous consoles.Advertisements for the system suggested that a whole newworld awaited users, a world explicitly linked to that ofmore traditional virtual reality devices defined by attemptsto provide an immersive experience in a "responsive virtualworld" incorporating "user dynamic control of viewpoint"(Brooks 16).This association led to audience expectationsabout the system's game content and experience thatNintendo would have a difficult time producing.

The Virtual Boy marketing campaign was impressive.In May 1995 Nintendo claimed to have invested over $25million in initial promotion ("Virtual Boy Launch Date"1 ), including print and television advertisements. However,Nintendo had a major problem promoting the system:the games were only 3-D when viewed on the system, soimages of the games were useless in print or on television.This was most notably addressed through a partnership dealwith Blockbuster and television advertisements on NBC.Nintendo's promotion manager, Mark Wescott, succincdystated:"It's a tough product to market via traditional market-ing means We need to get a lot of hands-on sampling,and this promotion is a creative way to accomplish that"(qtd. in Mándese and Fitzgerald).This Blockbuster/NBCpartnership concisely linked technology, marketing, and au-diences, encouraging the young NBC audience that made

up a good portion of Nintendo's target audience to rent thesystem at Blockbuster for a cheap ten-dollar investment. Acoupon for this amount came with the rental to encouragethose who tried out the system to take the next step andbuy the system, making the endeavor low risk for gamerswhile physically getting the system into a large number ofhands and giving consumers the unique experience, whichcould not be reproduced in advertisements. Nintendo de-clared it "the most successfU partner program in the gamearea we've ever done," anticipating a million rentals in thefirst month ("Blockbuster"). Indeed, this strategy succeededso thoroughly that Nintendo repeated the process with itsnext system, the N64, despite the fact that its images couldbe readily reproduced (Harris 47).

While these marketing strategies were successful ingetting the console into curious hands, what ultimatelywould determine if gamers would buy the system wasthe experience contained in the Virtual Boy. By the mid-1990s consumers had numerous choices in game systems,meaning innovative gadgetry alone was no longer enoughto convince gamers to spend a sizeable chunk of moneywhen they already owned an SNES or Genesis and werepreparing for the imminent expenditure on the next-generation consoles.

Ads for the Virtual Boy addressed this changing consolelandscape, acknowledging the need for more than just gim-micky 3-D graphics to sell a system and instead focusingon the revolutionary experience contained within. Theprimary advertising campaign promoting the system wasin line with the "Play It Loud" aesthetic, depicting the cur-rent state of video gaming as prehistoric, with the VirtualBoy ushering in an entirely new way of looking at theworld.This campaign, which spanned print and television,showed cavemen using the Virtual Boy, indicating that thesystem would provoke a radical shift in user consciousness.Statements like "Stick your head in Virtual Boy and youwon't be the same when you puU it out" contribute to thisidea ("A 3-D Game"), while another ad suggests that thesystem opens up a whole new reality,"a third dimension, agood dimension" ("Turn It On"). Other advertisements forthe system replaced the caveman theme with psychedeliceffects, linking the experience of using the Virtual Boywith that of a hallucination or mind-altering substance,likely an edgy drug-inspired appeal to the newly targetedolder teen demographic ("Get into It").

If the advertisements for the system suggested a thor-oughly different gaming experience, Nintendo's discourse

Stever) Boyer 29

on the Virtual Boy went even ftirther, positing the existenceof an entirely new world within the console's display. Earlypress releases describe the system as "immersing playersinto their own private universe" ("Nintendo Introduces"1), going as far as labeling it "the first three-dimensional,virtual immersion, 32-bit video game system" ("VirtualBoy Launch Date" l).While many of these radical claimswere hkely an in-your-face attempt to woo older gamers,this focus on the immersive properties ofthe system is alsopart of the larger association made between the VirtualBoy and virtual reality in order to push technical prowessto mature gamers.

Virtual reality devices were a widespread fad in thelate 1980s and early 1990s, populating video arcades, mallcorridors, and research laboratories across the nation.Whatactually constitutes a virtual reality device as opposed toa gaming device was and stul is blurry territory. HowardRheingold's book on virtual reality gives a variety ofexamples of ways in which researchers were using themedium, suggesting that a convincing level of immersionin a virtual space and the ability to navigate this spacevia feedback mechanisms are two frindamental featuresof virtual reality (100). However, many 3-D video gamesplayed on an ordinary television screen, incorporatinguser feedback through a controller, also satisfy these basicconditions. Rheingold seems to be getting closer to thecore of virtual reality w^hen he discusses haptic perception,bringing a re-creation ofthe sense of touch into the ex-perience (26).This suggests that the feedback in a virtualreality system must go above and beyond simple inputmechanisms traditionally associated with video games, Ukea handheld controller, and more actively acknowledge thebody ofthe user.

Ted Friedman's discussion of conceptions of cyberspacesuggests that fantasies ofthe body are at the core of howsociety understands this term (167—71). Early attempts totranscend the body by exchanging it for the look, feel, andgeneral experience of another body via virtual reality deviceswere slowly supplanted by the desire to elide the body com-pletely through use ofthe Internet. However, as Friedmanargues, this conception of a disembodied cyberspace dan-gerously represses the reality of a user's physical body as wellas the physical labor required to make the entire experiencepossible, resulting in a resurgence of interest in technologiesthat incorporate the body to a larger degree.

Nintendo's own product history, when viewed from thisperspective, has increasingly come to redefine the interac-

tion between user and console through the body. Earlyperipherals like the Zapper gun required physical aimingof the gun, while a device like the power pad, a grid ofsensors on a floor mat, incorporated the movements oftheentire body for aerobic activity. The Wii, whue previouslydescribed as a system revolving around the peripheral, doesso by redefining the interaction between the peripheraland the body.The Wiimote allows the system to replicatethe motions ofthe user's off-screen body on-screen, whuea newer peripheral like the Wii Balance Board works likean advanced power pad, registering friU body motion.

The Virtual Boy arrived at a critical moment in the evo-lution ofthe relationship between the body and electronictechnology, with virtual reality still on the public's mind andwhen the promise of a disembodied Internet had not yettaken hold.Thus, Nintendo decided to market the VirtualBoy not merely as a 3-D iteration ofthe old consoles butas a virtual reality device capable of transporting users toan entirely new world. This strategy is most apparent inthe naming ofthe system, which, along with the physicaldesign ofthe console, which emulates the head-mountedgoggles associated with virtual reality, directly ties thedevice to virtual reality systems. On the surface, then, theVirtual Boy appeared to be a virtual reality device designedfor consumers, providing an experience different fromtraditional video games. As president Yamauchi claimed,the system "will transport game players to a'virtual utopia'with sights and sounds unlike anything they've ever expe-rienced" ("Nintendo Introduces" 2), structuring consumerexpectations through the framework of virtual reality.

These expectations, however, turned out to be muchmore difficult to deliver than Nintendo may have initiallythought.Yamauchi's statement about the system's Utopianpossibilities is qualified by a second clause, stating that itwould be delivered "all at the price of a current homevideo game system" ("Nintendo Introduces"2). Nintendowas well aware ofthe need to keep costs low, as the com-pany typically followed the "razor marketing" approachof pricing hardware affordably in order to make a profitoff the company's carefrilly controlled software (Kinder91—92). In the past Nintendo had insisted on affordabüityalongside innovation, two concepts that do not alwayseasily coincide. Nintendo's first major success in the homevideo game market, the Famicom (the NES outside Japan),undercut the competition, selling for less than half theprice of competitors' devices whue offering even bettertechnology (Sheff 29). In this case Nintendo was able to

30 AVirtual Failure

convince manufacturers to provide units at low cost dueto the high sales volume guaranteed by Yamauchi (Sheff31-32).

With the Virtual Boy, however, economic limitationsseverely impacted avadahle technology, in turn affectingthe Utopian experience Yamauchi boasted of delivering.The system ended up costing $180 at launch, which was$20 less than the launch prices of either the Sega Genesisor Nintendo's own SNES and significandy lower thanthe prices of the next-generation consoles, but far moreexpensive than the $100 Game Boy. At a time when con-sumers were stdl getting used to spending $100 plus theprice of games and accessories on what was considered achdd's toy, the prospect of paying $180 on a system thatwas not completely portable or as fully featured as thenext-generation systems did not seem logical to manyconsumers.

Therefore, the system needed to deliver a fantasticexperience to compete with other consoles, which wastough to produce on a limited hudget. Despite a NintendoPower article contending that "the red and hlack imagesgive the virtual world even more of a sci-fi look" ("VR32" 84), this stylistic choice was actuaUy economicallydictated. Multicolor LEDs were extremely expensive atthe time, forcingYokoi to work entirely with the cheapestLEDs avadable, which happened to be red (Kolan,"VirtualBoy Revisited") .Whde a monochromatic display may haveworked fine for the Game Boy, the red world of theVirtualBoy was cited as a cause for concern in most articles writ-ten about the system, with some journalists claiming theeffect gave gamers headaches and other uncomfortable sideeffects (Kent). Even more significandy, this effect eUminatedany possibdity of the virtual world passing as a new formof reality, except as one that was generaUy unpleasant.Themanual for the system is punctuated by frequent "Cau-tion" sections warning users ahout possible head/neck/eye strain, headaches, and dizziness (see pages 13, 15,16,23).This also impacted game design, as Virtual Boy WarioLand, for example, enforces a twenty-minute time Umit oneach stage to encourage users to take the periodic breakssuggested in the instruction manual (Kolan, "Virtual Boy'sBest Games").These frequent pauses took players out ofthe supposedly immersive experience, forcing them toreturn to reality all too often.

Furthermore, the games that were ultimately released forthe system did Utde to produce a new world: most were just2-D games with 3-D effects. One reviewer bluntly states:

"Each of the first five tides being released by Nintendofor the Virtual Boy is an attempt to fire new Ufe into anold 8-bit title by adding a few three-dimensional effects"("RatingVirtual Boy"). Nintendo's designers had no illu-sions ahout what type of experience they were creating,with Yokoi stating that the system was "most suited toaction and puzzle games," genres that are not particularlycompatible with the virtual reaUty experience since theyrarely take advantage of first-person perspective ("AnAudience" 46). Whue he does mention "shoot-em-ups"and role-playing games as a fiiture possibdity, none of thesegames were ever released and were certainly not the focusof Nintendo's development strategy.

Finally, theVirtual Boy completely neglects virtual real-ity devices'radical incorporation of the user's body into thefeedback system. Rather than install expensive motion sen-sors into the headset to register head movement, theVirtualBoy reverted back to the traditional console mode of in-teractivity: the handheld controller. The designers did addmore buttons to allow for movement in three-dimensionalspace, hut the conception of the way the hody interactedwith the on-screen images was no different from any previ-ous console. Even more distressing, the deUcate nature ofthe device required the user's head to be completely still,eliminating those expected body movements facditatedby television-based and handheld systems when the userhecomes engrossed in the experience, such as leaning intocurves during a racing game or leaning forward duringan especially intense action sequence. Playing theVirtualBoy, therefore, feels much more like peering into an alienworld from a distance rather than actually inhabiting anybeUevable tactile space.

In regard to both technology and game content, theVirtual Boy counteracted the immersive experience thatmade up the core of Nintendo's marketing strategy.The factthat partnership deals successfuUy installed the system intoa large number of hands for trial periods actually workedagainst Nintendo, as it aUowed users to see firsthand thata world similar to that of virtual reaUty devices did notexist within the Virtual Boy. However, whde there werefew long-term adopters, these trial runs did expose a hugenumber of people to Nintendo's continuing attempts tobreak the mold with novel technology, furthering its moregeneral goal of brand promotion to fend off the advancesof Sega and Sony.

Thus, despite successfuUy appealing to a new demo-graphic and recognizing the changing face of game play-

Stevet) Boyer 31

ers, the experience provided by the system ignored thetechnological desires held by this audience. Inconsistencybetween marketing and technological development withinNintendo ultimately meant that consumers did not receivethe expected experience, which may point to faults in thecompany's internal structure but which perhaps suggeststhe general difficulties in addressing audiences during aperiod of radical change.

Conclusion: Pure Mediation

Although long maligned, Nintendo's Virtual Boy indicatesthat video games and their associated technology play asignificant cultural role for more than just those who con-sider themselves gamers. New technologies emerge out ofgeneral societal desires when producers attempt to projectthese widespread hopes onto material goods as a meansto both make a profit and stimulate cultural progression.Interactive technology suggests a new method of coexistingwith media that have spawned out of an overly saturatedenvironment, providing a means to control surroundingimages rather than blindly accept them.

In many ways television studies grappled with similarissues, attempting to elevate what is perceived as a "low"cultural form into a complex entity that altered the mannerin which the general population experienced the worldthrough visual media. Video games transformed the do-mestic sphere even further, hijacking the television screenand giving control to those in the living room rather thanin the distant television station.This réévaluation of mediatechnology forms a primary strain of the Virtual Boy'sstruggle to advance the video game medium by incorpo-rating virtual reality, marking a flirther shift: in interactivetechnology but bringing with it the conflicting specificitiesof each medium and its audience's associated fantasies.

It is this struggle over mediated fantasies that made theVirtual Boy exciting to a select portion of gamers on initialrelease as well as to collectors today. Between exchanginginformation about their game collections, the members ofthe "PlanetVirtual Boy" forums, stul active over a decadeafter launch, hint at the reasons behind their love of theconsole. Aside from a more general nostalgia, the majormotivation given is that to which Nintendo aspired: it pro-vides an immersive experience far beyond other consoles.I have suggested that Nintendo's branding of the systemas having accomplished this task may have contributed toconsumer disillusionment follovwng trials. Users on "Planet

Virtual Boy" seem able to appreciate the attempt despitetechnical shortcomings. In fact, admiration for the console's"Icarus" status suggests that these gamers stul desire thatnew virtual world Nintendo couldn't quite create. Oneposter to this end feels that"[g]raphics on consoles can onlyimprove to a certain point. Immersiveness [51c] is the nextstep. The next step in video games is true 3d, untu thenthe only technology that comes close is theVB," suggestingthat even in the time since the Virtual Boy consoles havenot been able to make that decisive break that will trulyreimagine gaming (Raverrevolution).

Statements like this indicate a wider shift in the waysociety conceptualizes and interacts with media. Bolter andGrusin offer the concept of "remediation," a paradoxicalproliferation of media that simultaneously encouragesthe disavowal ofthe occurrence of mediation as a way oflooking at advances in media technology (5).The authorsposition virtual reality as a "cultural metaphor for the idealof perfect mediation" in that it appropriates all previousmedia forms into a transparent experience (Bolter andGrusin 161-62). For users, this experience is an"exercise inoccupying a visual point of view," encouraging an examina-tion ofthe relationship between the body and the worldthrough a virtual self (Bolter and Grusin 165—66). Hence,virtual reality technology's effectiveness is predicated onthe first-person perspective to generate this new idea oftheself along with an emphasis on the use ofthe body, eitherthrough tactile sensations or motion sensing technology,to navigate this virtual world.All of this technology buildsan experience in which the user feels a transcendence ofthe body and the inhabitation of a new one, coming tocomprehend the virtual world fi om a completely separatepoint of view.

The Virtual Boy aspires to this revelatory experiencebut ultimately struggles to merge the two distinct mediaforms of home consoles and virtual reality devices. Thefinal design appeals to the experience ofthe latter but wascouched in the former's traditions. Gamers looking solelyat the available content were not duped by Nintendo'smarketing bravado, instead identifying the system as repro-ducing 2-D games with 3-D effects while ignoring virtualreality's conception of the body. Those interested in theconsole's unique experience, however, were able to see theattempt to advance the medium by moving toward theideal transparency and bodily exchange sought by virtualreality devices. For these gamers, Nintendo's aspirationsto a Utopian mediated experience corresponded to their

32 A Virtual Failure

own desires to understand their experience in a media-saturated society and the role of the body in this world.The technical failures of the system only reaflirmed thesocietal realization that modern Ufe is necessarily mediatedthrough available technology, creating an experience ofthereal as rehant on economics as perception.

The Virtual Boy, then, serves as an extreme exampleof a much larger interrogation of technology's role inconceptualizing the social experience of reality. Due toits status as a fauure, accounts ofthe system's history drawattention to larger narratives of technological advance-ment and reconfiguration, emphasizing the continuousrenegotiations at work in all media forms whue drawingattention to the changing relationship between audiencesand industry. As part of this larger cultural shift, the fauureof the Virtual Boy serves as a potent indication of howcultural desires, technological limitations, and marketingimperatives collide to create a unique societal expression ofboth past experiences and projected notions ofthe ftiture.Rather than merely serving as a footnote in the history ofgaming, the failure of the Virtual Boy provides a snapshotofthe industrial difliculties encountered in addressing thesevast consumer changes and, more significandy, serves as anoptimal representation ofthe conflicts implicit in the largercultural experience of technology.

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