In Kyoto, a city full of traditional Kyoto, Nintendo's brand-new headquarters building stands silently.

Unlike other game companies, although Nintendo also built a headquarters building, Nintendo's headquarters building was built well.

After all, Nintendo is not only a century-old store, but also the absolute number one video game company in the world.

American entertainment giants like Time Warner were not killed by Nintendo in lawsuits in the United States, knocking down thousands of dollars.

Nintendo is a company that is different from other game companies, but who makes Nintendo stand out?

It can only be said that it is the entire staff of Nintendo.

As the head of the first development department, Yokoi Junhei has a very good record, whether it is a game watch with a total sales of more than 50 million units in the past, or a game boy who is inseparable from the current 10,000 households, it is a very successful hardware product.

As the head of the first development department, when the company's home machine system was rising, and Shigeru Miyamoto and other juniors were attracting much attention, he was still playing with hardware, and he wanted to make a new game console, which not only has a new gimmick, but also has a very low cost.

With a low price and a brand new gimmick, I believe that this machine will not make a lot of money.

The machine he is designing is called VB, the full name is VIRTUAL-BOY, and a little shorter, VR-BOY.

This is a 32-bit portable host, as you can tell by its name, this is a virtual reality host.

Nintendo has always cooperated with other well-known institutions in the hardware design of game consoles.

Whether it is with Panasonic, Hitachi, Sony, Philips, and Hudson, the cooperation unit of the VB virtual reality portable host is a laboratory of Keio University.

In 1993, the laboratory developed a new visual display solution based on light-emitting diodes, which caused a sensation in the industry at that time.

However, due to the difficulty of commercialization, no companies have tried to promote this technology to consumer electronics.

But two years later, in 1995, Gunpei Yokoi, who was good at discovering backward technologies and rejuvenating withered ones, found Keio University.

The finished product of the cooperation between Nintendo's first development department and the research laboratory of Keio University is VB.

Originally, it was expected that the VB would be a portable device worn on the head like a nap eye mask.

But as we all know, hardware design has always been a compromise process.

It is necessary to compromise the cost, to compromise the technical strength, and to compromise the yield rate.

That kind of small, light blindfold-like virtual reality display device was too difficult to make, with high cost and low yield, so in the end, Yokoi had to make this machine, which he had put a lot of effort into, like a camera, to be stable with a triangular stand.

VrBoy is a machine that can be regarded as Nintendo's most revolutionary (meow) fight in terms of gameplay.

The reason why Gunpei Yokoi wanted to come up with such an idea and turn it into reality was to use this machine to break through the bottlenecks that video games are currently facing.

That's right, he thinks that at this point in 1995, video games have reached a bottleneck.

Video games have completely lost the shocking mystery that they had when they first appeared.

If you go directly to the present ten years ago, they will see a new game console, but they will feel that the game is complicated and the graphics are good, but they can still play it immediately without being surprised.

In other words, in the intervening decade, the video game industry has done little more than a pile of stuff.

With better hardware performance, the game has better performance.

According to the vast majority of practitioners, this is no problem at all, and at that time, in the eyes of Yokoi Junhei, this was the problem.

As a result, he led the VB project.

The technical principle of VB is to superimpose the same image generated by both eyes at the same time into a three-dimensional image space composed of dots and lines.

Although there are many problems and only red monochrome LEDs can be used to compose the picture, the effect is still very impressive.

It is completely different from the kind of plane three-dimensional dominated by 10,000 households.

The picture really appears in a three-dimensional space.

In other words, VB is not a screen, but a super-mini stage.

Players will play the game directly in such a three-dimensional space based on physical reality.

It may be difficult to appreciate the power of this technology from print media such as magazines or television, but if you experience the actual machine, you will find that it is a wonderful experience.

After completing the first phase, Gunpei Yokoi immediately presented this new development plan to all Nintendo executives.

When all the Nintendo executives and veterans of the Nintendo video game era experienced this prototype, they were shocked by the graphics of the VrBoy.

However, their shock, in addition to the shock of the picture, did not continue to support the development of Yokoi Junhei.

Because, if you really use such hardware to develop a game, it will be completely incompatible with the existing development environment.

In other words, almost all of Nintendo's development experience accumulated on traditional video game consoles is useless.

That's not even the biggest problem, as a first-party Nintendo can adapt to this machine anyway, but what about third parties?

You must know that since the middle of the red and white machine, third-party game software providers have begun to rebel against Nintendo again and again.

Hudson, Capcom, Namco, Konami, almost no manufacturer has a good relationship with them.

Although Nintendo was not afraid of them leaving, immediately after their departure, it propped up RPG rookies like Square Enix and Enix.

However, the technical accumulation of these rookies is much worse than those of established manufacturers.

Even, the reason why they make role-playing games is that their technical strength can't make the kind of side-scrolling games that require showing off their skills.

For example, the pinnacle of the "Ninja Dragon Sword and Sword" series, which was the pinnacle of the end of the red and white machine, was also the glory of the Pharaoh control company and the gathering of the strength of the whole company.

If VB really becomes the successor console to GB, that is, Game Boy, how can those weak third parties who are not very strong in technology make games for the entire platform?

And although Nintendo can do it itself, when will it be able to make the variety and richness of the game satisfy the appetite of players?