Nintendo Week - A History Of Possible Insanity

Posted by: Dom Cook on July 6, 2011 at 6:09PM
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Will the Wii U join the list of what went wrong?

A lot of people were left scratching their heads when Nintendo unveiled the obscure-looking Wii U console at E3 this year. Let’s be honest here, people shouldn’t really have been surprised; Nintendo has always been one to step outside the box… and sometimes into a puddle of mud.

Nintendo is the oldest surviving console developer. Even when Sony and Microsoft joined the race, they refused to play the same game. Nintendo focused on unusual peripherals, casual games, and a safe family-friendly gaming environment that the PlayStation and Xbox didn’t offer. With the release of the Nintendo Wii, and the recent announcement of the Wii U and its tablet-PC-style controller, Nintendo seems to be testing new waters once again. Today we’re going to have a look at the crazy products Nintendo has come up with in the past, and ponder just what Nintendo was thinking when they created them.

R.O.B (Robotic Operating Buddy)

R.O.B is easily Nintendo’s most obscure controller. It was released in 1985 in Japan and North America, and only supported two games: Gyromite and Stack-Up. Both games featured Professor Hector as the protagonist. Gyromite came with two spintops, one red and one blue tray, and a spinning motor used to spin the spintops. The game was a platformer, similar to Super Mario, and you had to make R.O.B place gyros on a colored platform in order to lower a pillar of the corresponding color. Stack-Up came with 5 different colored blocks, and the player was required to move Hector in order to make R.O.B stack the colored blocks in a certain way.

R.O.B had an extremely short shelf life, and eventually sunk into obscurity, only to pop up as a cameo in games such as Pikmin 2 and Mario Kart DS. Its most prominent cameo, which brought it back to the surface, was in 2008 as the primary antagonist of Super Smash Bros. Brawl; though most young gamers just scratched their heads and assumed it was some robot made-up for the game. R.O.B initially came with Gyromite, while Stack-Up was sold separately. You could also purchase a deluxe set that came with the NES console and other peripherals. The creation of R.O.B was supposedly created in response to the video game crash of 1983, but personally I think it was because the Japanese simply love robots. If you want to track down and purchase a R.O.B of your own, be warned, you may be paying a hefty price for one, and it won’t work on modern monitors, just CRT type televisions.

The Power Glove

Every gamer should know of this travesty by now, so there isn’t too much to talk about other than the fact that it was made popular by the film, “The Wizard,” and barely supported any games. It wasn’t actually created by Nintendo, although it was officially licensed. Instead, it was designed by AGE and then made by Mattel. Only two games were actually created specifically for the peripheral: Bad Street Brawler, an odd beat-‘em-up which allows the player to headbutt enemies in the crotch, and Super Glove Ball, a puzzle game set in the future of 2005!

More games were announced for it, yet never released. It failed even harder in Japan, seeing as no games for it were released there and the peripheral died. Fortunately, it has provided us with laughs at how ridiculous the concept was. It even made an appearance in the sixth Nightmare on Elm Street film, where Freddy Krueger attempts to kill Spencer within a game, using a NES controller. The controller is unplugged, and Freddy yells, “Hey, you forgot the power glove!” before using said power glove to finish him off.

Virtual Boy

Lauded as one of the worst inventions of all time by TIME Magazine, the Virtual Boy was a commercial failure. The concept was quite unique at the time though, and attempted to offer a realistic device that was only previously seen in science fiction. However, technology just wasn't quite up to speed and so it had several shortcomings. The Virtual Boy had a monochromatic display, using only red LED pixels seeing as they were cheapest to use at the time. Full color was tested, only to cause double vision. Playing a game in bright red was a fairly big flaw, with no real workaround at that point. 3D tends to give a fair few people gigantic headaches, but the Virtual Boy was notorious for it. In fact, game cartridges even packed the feature to pause the game every 15-30 minutes so that you can rest your eyes. In addition to a screen of shocking red, the graphics of the Virtual Boy were fairly crappy. The Nintendo 64, which had far superior graphics for that time, was only about a year away so the Virtual Boy was pushed out as quickly as possible in order to work on the N64.

The console used cartridges similar to the Game Boy, though the Virtual Boy wasn't very portable, and was never created in order to replace the Game Boy. Only 22 games were released, 19 for Japan and a mere 14 for North America. The Virtual Boy only lasted a matter of months before it was discontinued. Only 800,000 units were shipped in total, and despite its rarity you can find them for a fairly reasonable price on Ebay. Although the Virtual Boy was a failure, its creation has lead Nintendo to better things. It's likely that it was an inspiration for the Nintendo 3DS, a successful glasses-free 3D handheld which was released earlier this year.

Wii U: success, or another utter failure waiting to happen?

Only time will tell what happens with the Wii U. The concept isn't exactly anything new: the PlayStation 3 could already use the PSP as a limited controller via Remote Play, and it's likely the Vita will have extra functionality with the PS3. However, considering the success of the Nintendo Wii, it's likely the Wii U will cash in on the same success. Fortunately, the console still uses the Wiimote and nunchuk, however, the Wii U controller can only be bought with the console. This raises the question of how syncing your controller to another console will work, and what happens when your one and only controller breaks?

Fingers crossed that the Wii U is a success, and odds are that it will be. They did extremely well at the recent E3, they don't have bad publicity brought on by a hacking incident, and they boast a loyal fanbase comprised of children, and fans that have lived through the good... and the aforementioned bad. Despite previous failures, the saying goes, "to make an omelette, you have to break a few eggs." So what do you think, Questy followers? Do you think the Wii U will join the pile of failed ideas, or rake in as much success as the Wii once had?