Virtual and augmented reality continues to be a heavily discussed aspect of the game industry’s trajectory moving forward. But, Nintendo aren’t convinced.
Perhaps they still feel burned by their experiences in launching 1995’s Virtual Boy, which used a parallax effect to display monochromatic 3D games. It hadn’t caught on, and Nintendo hit the abort button within just six months after the forward-thinking headset’s release.
Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime remains unconvinced by Microsoft and Sony’s pursual with HoloLens and Project Morpheus, sharing that while the technology impresses it isn’t yet fun or social enough.
“We have knowledge of the technical space, and we’ve been experimenting with this for a long, long time,” Fils-Aime admitted to Polygon. “What we believe is that, in order for this technology to move forward, you need to make it fun and you need to make it social.”
He continued, “I haven’t walked the floor, so I can’t say in terms of what’s on the floor today, but at least based on what I’ve seen to date, it’s not fun, and it’s not social. It’s just tech.”
