Virtual Boy 2 or Wii HD? Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto discusses the likelyhood of each

31 October 2008

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Posted by:Josh

Could a Nintendo Virtual Boy 2 or Wii HD (AKA Nintendo Wii 2) ever be a reality? Shigeru Miyamoto gave a recent interview with a German Technology TV show in which they were able to interview him in London.

Because Nintendo is a company that likes to push the envelope of technology in unique, if unexpected, directions, the interviewer thinks that Nintendo may be the first company to bring actual 3D technology to the gaming world and into the mainstream, like they unsuccessfully tried to do with Gunpei Yokoi’s Virtual Boy. The Virtual Boy was a “portable” video game system which presented 3D graphics in red and black via a hefty goggle-like console which you set up on a sort of tripod and looked through the goggles to play. Unlike previous systems, the Virtual Boy presented “true 3D” graphics by using parallax to create an illusion of depth thanks to the eyeglass-style projector that created the screen the players saw when looking through the eye-piece. The Virtual Boy was created by the maker of the Game Boy, but ended up being a huge commercial failure, and Nintendo only released 22 total games for the system (14 in the U.S.) before they pulled it.

When asked about Nintendo bringing 3D technology to market, Shigeru Miyamoto (Nintendo’s legendary game designer and the creator of Mario, Donkey Kong, Wii Music, Animal Crossing, Zelda, Nintendogs and more) said this:

“Nintendo is always trying to construct the framework in which we can provide… we can be as creative as possible in order to create as new entertainment as possible. And that’s what Nintendo has been striving at and that’s what Nintendo will be challenging itself once again in order to make unique entertainment opportunity.

But if I can just add my personal opinion: if the new environment requires the player to wear some goggle-style, I really don’t have a good impression of that.”

Miyamoto was also asked about the rumored Wii HD. And this is how he replied:

“We are working in terms of the changes of technology all the time.”

So no concrete answers either way, but it’s still interesting to hear directly from Miyamoto himself.

Read the full interview at Neogaf, images via Virtual-Boy.org