Virtual Boy, Meta and eSIMs

Instruction Set, September 18th

Welcome back to Multicore. This is Instruction Set for Thursday, September 18th.

In line with the new format, here are seven things reasonably hot off the press.

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Okay, so Nintendo brought back the Virtual Boy.

You’ll soon be able to buy a $100 full-sized recreation of the disastrous ‘90s VR misadventure, slot your Switch or Switch 2 into it and play a large chunk of its admittedly meagre library through Nintendo Switch Online.

It’s good to know they’ve still got it. While the Switch 2 was wholly predictable — for the best, to be clear — this is one of the most surprising announcements I’ve ever seen Nintendo make in all my years following and covering the company.

That’s not to say a peripheral for a retro games subscription service is a big deal, because this is obviously very niche. But Nintendo almost never even mentions the Virtual Boy. It’s one of the company’s most infamous failure; discontinued after less than a year in both the US and Japan, it’s a console that makes the Wii U look like a resounding success.

I’d always thought that if ever Nintendo were to re-release Virtual Boy games, it would have been on the 3DS, a relatively lo-fi console with a built-in 3D screen that could have made for a fun way to revisit the library. I still think that was a missed opportunity, but hey, I’ll take this full-throated, unironic revival. If nothing else, I’m always down for a new desk ornament.

There’s also a $30 cardboard model that looks similar to the DIY “headset” Nintendo designed for the Labo series on the original Switch.

I’m fascinated to see how these games run on Switch hardware. The OLED model might be a particularly good fit given the Virtual Boy’s black-and-red graphics; Switch games looked rough on the Labo headset with the lenses pushed up so close to the 720p screen, but that’s still a lot higher than the original hardware.

Meanwhile, the 1080p Switch 2 screen should be a rough match for the first PlayStation VR if Nintendo boosts the rendering resolution, though you’ll be missing out on inky OLED blacks. Then again, so did the original Virtual Boy.

The revival begins in February. I am there.