Every fami🔥ly has that one member who's a little...off. Every family deals with t♐hem differently. They might try to change them, shove them into the background, or just pretend they don't exist. Even the celebrated, family-friendly Nintendo has a black sheep. It's called the Virtual Boy.

Released in 1995, the Virtual Boy is considered Nintendo's biggest failure. Discontinued months after its release, it became the sort of the forgotten middle child of the Nintendo console family. It was trapped between trying to emulate the portability of its older brother, the Game Boy, ♊and compete with the technological advancements of its younger sibling, the Nintendo 64. Unfortunately, in trying to do both, it ended up doing neither. Despite a heavy marketing push, the Virtual Boy couldn't escape its reputation for being too overpriced for portable gaming, and too limited to be the next great home console. When it was canceled, it was done quietly, without so much as a press release. Now it’s an awkward question that Nintendo execs struggle to answer during interviews, like parents who make up excuses for their troubled children at family reunions.

Like any black sheep, there's a good chance the Virtual Boy🐎 is just misunderstood. Sure it has problems, but who doesn't? Perhaps if we learn more about it, we'll appreciate it for what it is. So here's a closer look at the Switch's forgotten ancestor, the one the Wii U points to when it messes up, the Virtual Boy.

15 🃏 Master Of Illusion

The main draw of the Virtual Boy♏ was that it displayed games in stereoscopic 3D. Except it didn't. The 3D was not real 3D. The truth was that the system displayed two images: one red and one black. The red was layered on top of the black to create the illusion of depth. Why was red was the chosen color? Because it was the cheapest. Nintendo claimed that getting the full spectrum of colors for the LCD display would've been too expensive. It also reportedly made the images "jumpy" during product testing. So they opted for red, the cheapest color LED lights came in. Yet the system was still famous for causing motion sickness and e⛄ye pain so...didn't quite fix that problem.

14 ⭕ Maybe Don't Put That On Your Resumé... 𓂃

Gunpei Yokoi had a very impressive career at Nintendo as the general manager of Nintendo's first research and development division. He worked closely with the legendary Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of Mario. In fact, it was Yokoi who suggested that Miyamoto give Mario his superhuman jumping abilities. And as if that wasn't amazing enough, Yokoi also created the . Talk about an impressive resumé. It just so happened that Yokoi was planning to retire around the time he started developing the Virtual Boy. To that end, the Virtual Boy was meant to be a sort of parting gift to the company. One last job, if you will. But when the Virtual Boy became a massive failure, Yo⛎koi decided to stay with Nintendo, so it didn't look like he was admitting defeat. He created the Game Boy Pocket, and then quit to pursue his own independent gaming ventures.

13 From A Certain Po🏅int Of Vie🎐w...

The Virtual Boy was in an awkward middle-ground. Its naming suggests that it's meant to be a follow-up to the Game Boy, the massively successful handheld gaming device. Unfortunately, the Virtual boy wasn't small enough to be conveniently portable. Not to mention, it required a stand and a surface to sit on. So was it more of a home console like the Super Nintendo? Well, no, ꧒because it lacked the means to plug into a television. When met with all the things the Virtual Boy couldn't do, advertising had to get...creative. One example of their liberal interpretation of the console's features is a commercial in which they said the graphics were "too advanced to be seen on TV." Someone should've ♈given the guy who came up with that a raise.

12 ꧋ They Find A Way To Put GameCube Coဣntrollers In Everything

The Virtual Boy, like most hardware, went through several prototypes before it was officially released. One of the earlier versions, pictured on the right, looks a lot like the many virtual reality headsets available in 2017. What's interesting about that one is that the slot for the game cartridges seems to be in the controller itself. Could this have been the inspiration for Nintendo 64 controllers having slots for memory cards and rumble packs? The one on the left seems to just be a blue version of the final Virtual Boy, but even that has intriguing implications. Notice the colors of the controller? Aren't they very similar to the GameCube controller's standard colors? Looks like Smash Bros. fans will find a way to ge🍌t GameCube controllers on every Nintendo console. Even 20-year-old ones.

11 Intense Multiplaye🌊r ꦑAction

On the back of the Virtual Boy is a very conspicuous port. That port is not labeled, and owners of the console would never get to use it. So why is it there? As it turns out, it was originally intended for a connector cable that linked two Virtual Boys together. Yokoi really did love his Game Boy-style link cables. Unfortunately, the Virtual Boy was discontinued before any developers could actually take advantage of the feature. So the only Virtual Boy game in history to actually deliver multiplayer is Waterworld. The movie-based game accomplished multiplayer by having pla🅘yers take turns passing the device around. As for the actual gameplay, it consists of the player controlling a boat from behind and shooting dudes on jet skis. Because nothing says intense Keven Costner action like organized, turn-based boat violence.

10 Totally Not Obvious ꧂Code Name ෴

During development, every Nintendo console is given a code name. Some ar🍷e pretty cool: T⛦he Nintendo 64 was called Project Reality, the Wii was called Revolution, and the Switch went by NX. Some are more on the silly side, like the Gamecube being called the Dolphin or the Wii U being named Project Café. But the Virtual Boy tops them all in the realm of...disappointment. The Virtual Boy was called the VR 32. As in "Virtual Reality, 32-bit." That's very on-the-nose. The only thing remotely impressive here is the fact that the Virtual Boy is Nintendo's first 32-bit system. In that respect, it actually outshines all of its predecessors. Too bad it lacked multiplayer games, a reasonable price tag, and every color except red and black.

9 Hܫow Long Did That One Last?

It is said that one of the very early concepts of the Virtual Boy included a gun-like projector. This device would've needed to be placed on a flat surface and would project 3D images. It would've played out like Tony Stark's holographic projectors in the Iron Man movies, throwing images into the air to be played with. Or, at least, that's probably what Nintendo was hoping for. Obviously, it didn't work, because it was the 1990s and technology wasn't nearly that advanced. It's really a perfect summary of the Virtual Boy as a whole.🧜 A lot of neat ideas that were way too ahead of their time. Hmm. Now that virtual reality actually does exist, do you think Nintendo should make a Virtual Boy 2?

8 Probably Should've🤪 Taken The Hint

T💦he actual technology for the Virtual Boy was not developed by Nintendo. The concept of a 3D headset that displayed images in red LEDs was first conceived by Reflection Technology Inc. (RTI for short). RTI actually had grander ambitions for the final product, creating a tank game to show off the hardware's head-tracking capabilities. With it, players could actually control the action on screen by moving their heads. RTI needed funding, so they demonstrated to companies like Hasbro, Mattel, and Sega. They were rejected every time, with Sega even going so far as to cite concerns of motion sickness. Nintendo happily partnered with RTI, producing the Virtual Boy. A console that was often criticized for causing headaches and nausea. Looks like Sega was actually right for on🍎ce.

7 So THAT's W🌼he💯re The Wii Got That From

Every Wii owner remembers the constant, annoying pop-ups that would remind gamers to take a break. It's as if Nintendo thinks we don't know how much of our lives we're wasting in front of a screen. Let us make our own bad decisions Nintendo! In all seriousness, those messages were meant to ensure that people didn't frantically waggle their remotes for long periods of time. Who wants get hurt playing a video game? It turns out that the Wii is not the first console to have that risk. The Virtual Boy was well-known for hurting eyes with its gaudy red lights. To combat this, Nintendo put pop-ups in Virtual Boy💛 games th𓃲at reminded players to take a break every 15-30 minutes. How about from now on, Nintendo, you just make consoles that can't hurt people?

6 🌃 Easiest Collection 🦩Ever

One nice thing about a failed console is that getting a complete collection of games doesn't take long. Because it was discontinued mere months after its release, the Virtual Boy only had 22 games. 19 of those games were released in Japan, and 14 were released in North America. Of those games, nothing was really ever a breakout hit. Wario Land was probably the best game, and that was more because it was a solid Wario platformer. It didn't even take advantage of the Virtual Boy's 3D. The two games that did take true advantage of the console's unique perspective were Teleroboxer, a first-person boxing game with robots, and Red Alarm, an on-rails space shooter with impressively deep environments. Definitely games to go back and pl꧅ay if you feel like spending hundreds of dollars o꧟n eBay.