Why hasn’t Nintendo made a real VR headset yet?

There are rumors that Nintendo is collaborating on a VR headset with Google. Rumor It’s still unconfirmed, but when the world’s oldest gaming company finally thinks it’s time to make a dedicated XR device, you know it’s going to be something special. However, seeing how far the technology has come, one begs the question: why hasn’t Nintendo made a VR headset yet?

Basically, Nintendo has a single MO, and it does that very well: creating widely accessible hardware to serve as a vehicle for its exclusive series of family-friendly games. Okay, it’s more complicated than that, but it’s a good starting point to understand why Nintendo hasn’t made a proper VR headset yet and probably won’t for a while.

Wait. Didn’t Nintendo have the Virtual Boy thing in the 90s? What about Labo VR for Switch? Is that a VR headset? Yes and no. Or rather no and sort of (in that order). I’ll cover those later.

In short, the reason Nintendo hasn’t created a real VR platform like Meta Quest has a lot to do with risk aversion, as the company generally prefers to wait until the technology matures and proves its potential. market. Over the years, Nintendo has also become increasingly reliant on large projects that, while not always cutting edge, have allowed it to exist comfortably outside of the PlayStation and Xbox binaries.

Multi-dimensional thinking with ‘Withered’ technology

Much of Nintendo’s market strategy can be attributed to Gunpei Yokoi, the talented Nintendo designer known for his pioneering role in the company’s handheld segment. Yokoi is credited with designing Nintendo’s first handheld, the Game & Watch, which, when released in 1980, used an inexpensive and abundant liquid crystal display as well as the original 4-bit microcontroller. was conceived for computers. Among many other achievements, Yokoi is credited with designing the Gameboy, creating the D-pad, and manufacturing both Metroids And Icarus Boy. His last project before leaving the company in 1996: Virtual Boy. More about that later.

Yokoi’s career at Nintendo spanned 31 years, including his transformation from a nearly century-old Japanese gaming company into a worldwide video game powerhouse. His philosophy, outlined in the Japan-only book ‘Gunpei Yokoi Game Hall’ (横井軍平ゲーム館), summarizes the kind of thinking that brought Nintendo to the world; Yokoi coined the phrase “diversity thinking with withering technology,” outlining the company’s strategy of using mature technology that is both cheap and easy to understand, then finding new and interesting ways to apply it to the game. That’s basically the case from Game & Watch up to Switch and Switch Lite.

And it’s not just handheld devices. Nintendo consoles also don’t tend to focus on cutting-edge specs (as any previous Wii owner can attest). For owners of Nintendo consoles over the years, it’s become even more important to be able to play games from a host of popular brands like Mario, Zelda, Smash Bros, Pokémon, Pikmin, and Animal Crossing. Since the success of the Wii, it has also been the creation of new types of games that focus on new input schemes, such as the way the Wiimote lets you participate. wii sports, or how Joy-Cons let you explore on the go Just dance. In short, Nintendo is really good at serving people what they are already familiar with and creating novelties that owners can either get in with or ignore.

Virtual boy failed, Labo VR experiment

When Nintendo adheres to its guidelines, we typically get DS, Switch, Gameboy, Wii, Game Boy Advance, 3DS, NES, SNES, Game & Watch, Nintendo 64—10 out of 20 video game platforms Best-selling in history. When they didn’t, we got the Virtual Boy.

Accounts suggest that Yokoi rushed to finish work on the Virtual Boy so the company could focus on the Nintendo 64 launch, which was part of the reason it failed. Right at the height of the ’90s craze, Nintendo released what was essentially nothing more than a 3D version of the Gameboy – a 32-bit standalone console that happened to have a stereoscopic display , making it less of a VR headset than Nintendo. 3DS. Besides relying on some objectively useless stereoscopic glasses shaped like a headset and named ‘Virtual’, that’s where the comparisons between it and virtual reality stop.

Note: Every time someone refers to the Virtual Boy as a VR headset or pretends to wear it in a YouTube thumbnail, I scream into an empty paint can, hoping the lingering fumes will calm my nerves.

There’s no head tracking, motion controls, or even games that can’t be played equivalently on a standard Gameboy. Furthermore, its red monochrome display was criticized for causing players’ eyestrain, nausea, and headaches while playing the game. Its awkward tabletop stand also lacks enough articulation to adjust to each user’s height, causing users to strain their necks while playing. The nail in the coffin: it cost $180 when it launched in 1995, just $20 less than the Nintendo 64 launched a year later, and promised realistic 3D graphics (something the Virtual Boy couldn’t do, although stereoscopic support is possible!).

However, I don’t think Nintendo tied the Virtual Boy’s failure to the larger failure of VR at the time, but rather recognized what happens when it innovates in the wrong direction and abandons its core principles . Nintendo’s successive handhelds focused on maintaining a pocketable form factor and typically offered a generation or two of backward compatibility so consumers could easily upgrade. Gameboys for tracking are truly portable and offer all the games you want to play on the bus, train, plane, wherever.

But what about Nintendo Labo VR for Switch? Well, it was a pretty cool experiment when it was first released in 2019. The cardboard DIY accessory pack really got Nintendo into VR for the first time, and it did it with the same family-friendly flair that the company seems to bring to everything it does.

It’s a fun little kit that uses the Joy-Cons in some unique ways, but with only a few high-quality native ‘try’ VR experiences to play with, it’s essentially a one-shot deal which Nintendo critically has not repeated beyond its initial release despite being generally well received by its target market.

It’s true that Nintendo has provided Labo VR support for a number of first-party titles, incl Super Smash Bros Ultimate, Super Mario OdysseyAnd The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but this only provides basic 3D viewer support and doesn’t convert these games into any kind of full VR experience.

To boot, Labo VR actually has Unity support, meaning third-party developers can create games and experiences for it; the reality is that headsets and slot-in Switch forms aren’t designed for long-term play like standalone headsets or PC VR headsets. It’s front-heavy, has no strap, and isn’t a cornerstone of modern VR platforms. It’s more of a toy than a platform.

Transform it with a great background

The big question is: When? When will Nintendo feel like VR is mature enough to go into full effect with something like a standalone headset, complete with Nintendo’s beloved franchise games? If past performance predicts future results, it’s highly unlikely we’ll see such a device any time soon.

The company has spent much of the past decade recovering from the failure of the Wii U, the company’s least successful console to date (next to the Virtual Boy). Foraying into the XR segment early with a dedicated hardware release seems counterintuitive when the company has focused on combining development of both handheld and console products with the Switch.

In addition to the interesting Labo VR add-ons, Nintendo has expressed skepticism about VR in the past. Talking to TIME, Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto said in 2014 that VR is not the type of widely accessible player experience the company is trying to improve with the Wii U:

“When you think about what virtual reality is, it’s a person wearing goggles and playing alone in a corner, or maybe they go into a separate room and spend all their time alone playing in virtual reality That, that’s the exact opposite of what we’re trying to achieve with the Wii U. And so I’m a little worried about whether that’s the best way for people to play.”

It’s true that technology has changed a lot since 2014, the same year the Oculus Rift DK2 launched. With mixed reality passthrough becoming standard on standalone headsets like the Quest 3 and Apple Vision Pro, Nintendo would be crazy not to follow up on this technology, although this is also possible. the same hesitation it has shown in the past with adopting advanced technology.

In fact, the company is actively creating patents for mixed reality systems that focus on cooperative gameplay that uses players both in and out of the headset. Above is one such patent from 2022 that shows a proposed multiplayer game based on some type of tabletop platform.

Unlike many tech companies that are trying to create multiple products and maintain large, interconnected platforms, Nintendo’s main MO is to bet on something big that will probably come with additional functionality. supplement and some input requirements. Whether it’s some kind of additional headphone peripheral or not… you never know. Ultimately, the more inclusive nature of mixed reality may change some minds at Nintendo, though you can bet that whatever comes next from the Japanese gaming company will be an experiment. or similar add-ons that use mature hardware in a new and different way. road.

– – – – –

What’s certain is that Nintendo is in no rush, as both hardware and software sales of traditional games still outpace those of VR games. Still, you can’t help but wonder what a Nintendo headset will look like, and what Nintendo’s full XR release will do for generations of kids (and adults) to come.