Not many of you may have heard Nintendo’s Virtual Boy. The virtual gaming console was a enormous flop and was shelved by the makers. Virtual Boy has since become a collector’s item now, commanding obscene prices on eBay. Now, thanks to a hack, Nintendo’s most maligned console flop, is getting a new lease on life thanks to some modern VR technology. Reddit user The King of Spain has modified an Android emulator so that you can play Virtual Boy through Google Cardboard, Samsung Gear VR, Hive or other cheap virtual reality setups. You’ll need to download the RetroArch emulator to your smartphone, tweak its settings per The King of Spain’s instructions, and then find yourself some Virtual Boy ROMs to play with it.
RetroArch takes the Virtual Boy’s anaglyph 3D image and splits it into side-by-side stereo, which works beautifully on Google Cardboard. So if you get your game on with a Bluetooth controller, you have can have a wonderful gaming experience. More so because the RetroArch lets remove the Virtual Boy’s eye-burning red tint. Naturally none of this has been given the Nintendo nod of approval, and getting hold of Virtual Boy ROMs is legally dubious, but if you’ve ever wanted to see why the Virtual Boy was such a short-lived flop, this is probably your best chance.
