Its failure has been attributed to its high price, unusual display consisting of only red and black, unimpressive stereoscopic effect, poor ergonomics, lack of true portability, and health concerns due to it giving many players headaches, dizziness, nausea and eye pain.

[3][4] The company produced a stereoscopic head-tracking 12-inch display device prototype called Private Eye, featuring a tank game.

[5] Seeking funding and partnerships by which to develop it into a commercial technology, RTI demonstrated Private Eye to the consumer electronics market, including Mattel and Hasbro.

[7] Spending four years in development and eventually building a dedicated manufacturing plant in China,[4] Nintendo worked to turn its VR32 vision into an affordable and health-conscious console design.

Yokoi retained RTI's choice of red LED because it was the cheapest,[7] and because unlike a backlit LCD, its perfect blackness could achieve a more immersive sense of infinite depth.

[9] With ongoing concerns about motion sickness, the risk of developing lazy eye conditions in young children, and Japan's new Product Liability Act of 1995, Nintendo eliminated the head tracking functionality and converted its headmounted goggle design into a stationary, heavy, precision steel-shielded, tabletop form factor conformant to the recommendation of the Schepens Eye Research Institute.

[18] The Virtual Boy was released on July 21, 1995, in Japan and on August 14, 1995, in North America[19][failed verification][20] with the launch games Mario's Tennis, Red Alarm, Teleroboxer, and Galactic Pinball.

[7] Advertising promoted the system as a paradigm shift from past consoles; some pieces used cavemen to indicate a historical evolution, while others utilized psychedelic imagery.

Nintendo targeted an older audience with advertisements for the Virtual Boy, shifting away from the traditional child-focused approach it had employed in the past.

[30] The popular rental system proved harmful to the Virtual Boy's long-term success, allowing gamers to see just how non-immersive the console was.

Each Virtual Boy game cartridge has a yes/no option to automatically pause every 15–30 minutes so that the player may take a break before any injuries come to the eyes.

Like using a head-mounted display, the user looks into an eyeshade made of neoprene on the front of the machine, and then an eyeglass-style projector allows viewing of the monochromatic red image.

The display consists of two two-bit (four shade) monochrome red screens of 384×224 pixels[37] and a frame rate of approximately 50.27 Hz.

The Virtual Boy is meant for the player to be seated at a table,[16][39] and Nintendo promised but did not release a harness to wear while standing.

[40] The player holds onto either side of the controller which has a unique extendable power supply that slides onto the back, housing the system's six AA batteries.

According to Gunpei Yokoi, Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi had dictated that only a select few third-party developers be shown the Virtual Boy hardware before its formal unveiling, to limit the risk of poor-quality software appearing on the system.

[48] It failed for several reasons including "its high price, the discomfort caused by play [...] and what was widely judged to have been a poorly handled marketing campaign".

[34] Gamers who previewed the system at the Shoshinkai 1994 trade show complained that the Mario demo was not realistic enough, was not in full color, and didn't motion-track the image when players turn their heads.

[9] In the lead editorial of Electronic Gaming Monthly following the show, Ed Semrad predicted that the Virtual Boy would have poor launch sales due to the monochrome screen, lack of true portability, unimpressive lineup of games, and the price, which he argued was as low as it could get given the hardware but still too expensive for the experience.

[49] Next Generation's editors were also dubious of the Virtual Boy's prospects after the show, and concluded their article on the system by commenting, "But who will buy it?

"[50] Following its release, reviews of the Virtual Boy tended to praise its novelty but questioned its ultimate purpose and longtime viability.

Though the device employs some basic virtual reality techniques, it does so like the traditional home console with no bodily feedback incorporated into gameplay.

Several prominent scientists concluded that the long-term side effects could be more serious, and articles published in magazines such as Electronic Engineering Times and CMP Media's TechWeb speculated that using any immersive headset such as the Virtual Boy could cause sickness, flashbacks, and even permanent brain damage.

[55] According to his Nintendo and Koto colleague Yoshihiro Taki, Yokoi had originally decided to retire at age 50 to do as he pleased but had simply delayed it.

[58] After leaving Nintendo, Yokoi founded his own company, Koto, and collaborated with Bandai to create the WonderSwan, a handheld system competing with the Game Boy.

[59] The original inventor, Reflection Technology, Inc., was reportedly financially "devastated" by the Virtual Boy's performance, with dwindling operations by 1997.

[60] In February 2016, Tatsumi Kimishima stated that Nintendo was "looking into" virtual reality but also explained that it would take more time and effort for them to assess the technology,[61] and in a February 2017 interview with Nikkei, he stated that the company was "studying" VR, and would add it to the Nintendo Switch once it is figured out how users can play for long durations without any issues.

[62] Nintendo introduced a VR accessory for the Switch as part of Labo, a line of player-assembled cardboard toys leveraging the console's hardware and Joy-Con controllers.

Emulation enabled modern stereoscopic goggles such as Google Cardboard, Samsung Gear VR and Oculus Rift in 2016.

[63][64] In 2018, hobbyist Furrtek released a board that replaces the display circuitry, allowing the Virtual Boy to be played on a VGA monitor or television set.