Rumor: Nintendo Has A Virtual Boy Emulator Running On Switch Hardware

Today we have a really interesting rumor about what is arguably Nintendo’s most lost of all video game consoles.

The Virtual Boy was originally released in 1995, and still stands with the dubious distinction of being Nintendo’s least successful platform. It was a 32-bit tabletop game console with a head mounted display. However, it stereoscopic 3D effect used parallax, and was not a true virtual reality experience. This disappointing gap between marketing and reality, dearth of games, and poor production led to the console’s failure.

The console was once cited by David Sheffield’s Game Over as being blamed on Gunpei Yokoi, the man who created their portable successes in Game & Watch and Game Boy. While later accounts have since disputed this characterization, there is no doubt that the console stands among the worst parts of the company’s legacy. It definitely ended the company who invented the device, Reflection Technology Inc.

And yet, the device still has a fervent fandom, with some gamers doing the work to redeem the reputation of its little known titles. Aside from Nintendo’s prerequisite first party games, the twin stick shooter like action of Jack Bros, and the ambition of first person horror title Innsmouth no Yakata stands out. But even the undisputably worst game in the console’s library, Waterworld, has a cult following of its own, perhaps in connection to the movie it was licensed to, and that flopped just as hard.

Today we know that there is a Virtual Boy exhibit in the Nintendo Museum. The Japan Times reports that there are even headsets where you can view some of the platform’s games.

However, emulator developer and dataminer Luigiblood has some interesting insight on this exhibit. Shigeru Miyamoto reportedly claims in a new interview that they are actually using the Nintendo Switch to emulate the Virtual Boy in the museum. In other words, Nintendo has a working Virtual Boy emulator on their console, right now.

Luigiblood also believes that they only created this emulator for the museum. If they plan to add Virtual Boy to Nintendo Switch Online, they will wait “until the next big NSO revamp.”

There are all certainly very interesting, and also strange decisions over at Nintendo. As you may remember, a few years ago they actually did release an update that allowed you to use the Switch as a VR headset, with the use of a Nintendo Labo Kit.

Earlier this year, a fan released a Virtual Boy emulator on the 3DS, which of course brings up the seemingly obvious fact that Nintendo could have released Virtual Boy games on that stereoscopic 3D device.

We don’t know if fans should really be looking forward to Virtual Boy games coming to the Switch or Switch 2, but if nothing else comes of it, it’s at least another reason to plan a future trip to Nintendo Museum if you can.