SUPER GAME BOY - (1993?)
This was an genius device that allowed you to play Game Boy games on your Super NES! It was simply a large cartridge that inserted into the cartridge slot of the Super NES. Game Boy games could be inserted through a little slot built into the Super Game Boy.
The Super Game Boy was basically an "operating system" that used icons and images to allow you to enhance the features of Game Boy games you were playing on your Super NES. One very exciting feature of the Super Game Boy allowed you to add color to Game Boy games! It could store up to 10 pre-programmed and custom-programmed colors, though only about 5 different colors could be displayed in the games. You could even add colorful borders to your games by clicking on (with the Super NES Mouse Adapter) border icons in the program.
The Super Game Boy isn't really dead. You can still play old Game Boy games on it, though it is not compatible with Game Boy Color or Game Boy Advance games... Nintendo discontinued production of the system back when Game Boy Color came out. Also, the Super Game Boy is very hard to find these days; if you want one, go to Nintendo.com's cutomer service.
VIRTUAL BOY - (1995)
Virtual Boy is considered one of the biggest mistakes Nintendo ever made. From what I know, the system was basically a huge pair of "virtual"-goggles that displayed a game in red and black shading. The system was more powerful than the original Game Boy (GB - 8 bit, VB - 32 bit), yet the games didn't have much technological improvements over their Game Boy ancestors.
The biggest flaw in the Virtual Boy was the system design. It was shaped like a pair of huge red goggles that sat on a small tripod stand. The "goggles" were in fact the game screen, in which you would rest you head and view the game you were playing. The games were shown in darkened red and black tints, which gave the illusion that it was being shown in 3D - or "virtual reality effects".
The Virtual Boy used a strange controller, with button placements for both right, and left handed people. This meant there were double button configurations on both the left and right sides of the controller. This made things very confusing, since the controller's buttons were so meshed together, it was hard to find which button to press.
I don't remember what the game cartriges looked like - I think they inserted into a small slot on the back of the Virtual Boy. The Virtual Boy was NOT backwards compaitible with previous Game Boy software... which was another factor leading to the system's obvious doom. All in all, I think the Virtual Boy had only 15 games mostly made by Nintendo.
The Virtual Boy was discontinued in 1996. It is probably not even sold in stores anymore (not even at FuncoLand/GameStop).
64 DISK DRIVE - (2000?)
One of the biggest achievements made by Nintendo turned out to be a complete failure. The 64DD was a huge disk drive that would allow players to download and save game data, and even edit certain coding within games themselves! The Nintendo 64 sat on top of the 64DD, which connected to the unit through the N64's Expansion Slot. No wires or confusing cords to mess with, the entire system was powered through the N64.
The main launch games that were available for the system in Japan were part of a large Mario Artist series - similar to Mario Paint for the Super NES.
Neither the games nor the 64DD itself made it outside Japan; Nintendo cancelled the entire project for some unknown reason. Probably because they forsaw a lack of 3rd-party support...
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I wonder what new projects Nintendo has planned for us lucky GameCube and Game Boy Advance owners...
The Game Boy Advance GameCube Player for the GameCube system seems like a great concept. Like the Super Game Boy adapter for the Super NES, the Game Boy Player allows you to play Game Boy games on a television through the GameCube! Unlike the Super Game Boy, the Game Boy Player is compatible with ALL existing and future Game Boy / Game Boy Color / Game Boy Advance games! Maybe companies will utilize the features of the Game Boy Player and create exclusive games that can only be played using that system! The Game Boy Player will be released during the first-quarter of 2003.
