There isn’t much of a medical explanation for what the Virtual Boy was doing to people to cause those effects. The man who lead development of the Virtual Boy left Nintendo shortly after it’s release. The most positive reviews asked why the machine was made and if it could possibly succeed, while nearly all reviews added a sentence like this one: “Playing too long made me dizzy,” or “gave me a headache,” or “made me nauseous.” Being inside of a headset took away the social aspects that were vital to gaming. For many people, the most obvious issue was that the gameplay didn’t feel natural. The display was ugly, the machine clunky, and the game selection boring. Upon release, it was met with nearly unanimous jeers.
It sold just under 800,000 worldwide units, a fraction of what the Famicom, Gameboy, and SNES would have sold in the same period. It’s reception at the time was incredibly bad. Red and black are the trademark colors of Virtual Boy games. It consisted of a headset with a screen that was only a few inches off of the eyes, and could only display two colors in each eye. Released in 1995 the Virtual Boy, was a Nintendo game console meant to be their first step into virtual reality. And in doing so, they were going to make the most physically uncomfortable gaming console of all time. They were going to dip into virtual reality. Nintendo - never the company to shy away from innovative game consoles - decided that they weren’t going to be held back by science fiction or anti-social behavior.