Nintendo DS vs. Virtual Boy

Hey! Are you illiterate? Would you rather listen to my whiny voice talk about what you could be reading?
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Before I start, I want you all to know that I hate this comparison. I try to point out that though the PlayStation 1 and 2 has been very successful for Sony, they have has their failures as well. People don't care to remember BetaMax, MiniDiscs, or even the PSX. Trust me, if you would put the worst parts of those in a blender and add the Game Gear for good measure, you would have the PSP.

But I digress. That comparison is for another article.

I'm writing this article to debunk the DS to Virtual Boy comparison once and for all. To do this, we will look at how the VB failed and the difference in what Nintendo was trying to accomplish with each system. You should be warned that I have no internal contacts or any of that ritzy journalist crap, but I'll give my reasons.

We'll start with the Virtual Boy.

Why the Virtual Boy Sucked, I Mean Failed

If you're Red, you're dead.

Those words were used in the Red Scare back in the 50's, but this is a free country, and I don't care if you are a dirty commie. What I do care about, is seeing the video game I'm freaking playing.

Take a look at this Warioland screenshot I lifted off the internet.

It hurts to look at it, and that is my point. Monochrome is fine, but not monochrome red. No video game system before or since has used monochrome red.

Now monochrome isn't bad in and of itself. Look at Asteroids. That is a perfect example of a game with two colors that is fun and doesn't make your eyes bleed. Now what if I Virtual Boyed it up? Behold!

One was a historic success, and the other would have caused seizures.

If the VB could have been grayscale, maybe it could have been more than a curiosity. As it was, it sucked on whole wheat.

When you make a trade, get SOMETHING in return.

So what did we get for the headache? Real 3D. Each eye got a different perspective on the view, so it created 3D the way our eyes do.

Here is the problem with this. Our minds are not that difficult to trick. Get the perspective on the polygons right on a regular big screen TV, and you can fool yourself into flinching when a hockey puck flies toward the game camera. The principle that the VB worked off of would make the immersion deeper, but the color and the graphics were more important to the 3D effect.

What slight advantage you received from the goggle design was lost in the nauseating graphics, and it was easier to play 3D games without it. Nintendo effectively went for the final 1% in 3D immersion first. This is why the VB was doomed to failure.

DS: You can see the difference.

Just a quick statement here. The DS does not have any horrific visual problems as you can see here.

DS 2, VB 0

Enough of this failure talk. I love Nintendo. Let's get to the DS, and how Nintendo is doing it right.

The DS: An Extension of a Video Game Trend that Stands Alone

The death of an era is the birth of another

Where are the arcades? Are you old enough to remember how popular they used to be? Here in America they are as dead as the drive in theater. Oh sure, you have an old Pac-Man machine in a bowling alley or a Wal-Mart, and you can find the rare places that claim to be arcades. But if you look hard, you will see that there is one type of pay per play video game machine that is growing in our country. The Megatouch machine

 

These things ain't cheap either. One of them costs 3-4 thousand dollars. About twice as much as a new Galaga machine.

The odd thing is that most of the games on these machines make Pong look like AN ADRENALINE PUMPING THRILLRIDE! So there has to be something people like about the input itself.

Did the VB have a arcade cousin? Hell yeah,

but they are extremely expensive and not something you want your date seeing you play. I may have seen one of these machines in person in my entire life.

My point is that touch screens have a history of success at a general public level even with a dearth of decent software, while Virtual Reality headsets and systems have faded into obscurity.

The DS is taking a proven success and including it. That is one major difference. But wait there is more!

Touch screens? TOUCH SCREENS? We don't need no stinking touch screens!

Get past the "innovations," "gimmicks," or whatever you want to call them. Throw them away, and look at what you have.

Without the 3D the Virtual Boy is a single player game system that only shows the color red. It is very cumbersome to use and looks really goofy.

Let me just set up my tripod and we'll game!

Without the touch screen the DS is a portable system with graphics that are better than the N64. It has wireless multiplayer, Wi-Fi, decent battery life, and it looks OK to really damned cool depending on who you ask.

My vote is for really damned cool.

In other words, the DS would be desirable without the touch screen. The same cannot be said for the Virtual Boy without its "real" 3D.

Conclusion

There you have it. The Virtual Boy had so many obvious flaws that it was a game system only a mother could love. The DS, on the other hand, takes a proven success and adds it to something that is pretty awesome to begin with.

End of story. The DS should no longer be compared to the Virtual Boy.

Copyright 2002-2004 by Joe Maywalt