Debacles and the M2

aso · Post by **aso** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 4:56 pm

Does anyone here remember the M2? It was supposed to be that big, impressive piece of hardware, destined to come out around 96 or 97 and stomp the PS, Saturn, and whatnot. It supposedly used some kind of arcade hardware, ideal enough for Capcom and Konami to design games.

Hell, Warp's original sequel to D was destined to come out on the M2 (I like links). Yes, D2 was released on the Dreamcast years later, but was set in some sort of winter wonderland, as opposed to a medieval castle.

It ultimately never came out. Perhaps the best example anywhere of vaporware.

On a similar vein, systems have been successfully released, but crashed and burned not long after. Almost surprisingly, most portables seem to fail this way. The Atari Lynx, to my knowledge, never, ever did well. The Game Gear didn't do much and disappeared off the radar within a few years. The Game.com crashed. I'm not sure of its popularity elsewhere, but the NeoGeo Color Pocket failed horribly here. The N-Gage has already peaked and is continuing a descent. And et cetera.

Can anyone else provide some examples?

Segata · Post by **Segata** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 5:01 pm

I don't know of any other good examples, but there's a little more info on the M2 <<here>>.

Light Speed · Post by **Light Speed** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 6:52 pm

The Jaguar!!!

EDIT: It wasn't a portable, but it failed horribly. First 64 bit system though. Also the Nomad didn't do to hot. It was just a Genesis with 30 second batteries though.

Ash Holt · Post by **Ash Holt** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 7:08 pm

I remeber seeing a screenshot of something rendered with the M2; I was all impressed at how round a ball was. Wow.

BlazeHedgehog · Post by **BlazeHedgehog** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 7:24 pm

I remember the M2. I remember seeing images of the tech demos in EGM or Ultra Gameplayers or something, like shoot'em'up where thousands of enemy ships swarmed the screen all at once, with full on alpha-transparency smoke running at something insane like 500fps (according to the FPS counter in the program itself).

Or a big robot who charged through a field, with completely generated-in-real-time reflective metal crome (We haven't seen true reflection mapping until just recently with the Xbox).

Post by **Squirrelknight** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 7:45 pm

Light Speed wrote:The Jaguar!!!

EDIT: It wasn't a portable, but it failed horribly. First 64 bit system though. Also the Nomad didn't do to hot. It was just a Genesis with 30 second batteries though.

Whether or not the Jaguar was 64 bit was debatable. From what I understand, it just had 2 32-bit processors, and looking at a few screenshots from the system's games, I seriously doubt that its anywhere near 64 bits. The graphics are sub-PS1 launch title quality.

Post by **Green Gibbon!** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 8:51 pm

I think the Jaguar could officially be considered the worst system ever. It had even fewer good games than the N-Gage.

Zeta · Post by **Zeta** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 9:48 pm

The fucking Virtual Boy is the worst system either. At least the Jaguar and N-Gage didn't have a high chance of causing permanent eye damage.

plasticwingsband · Post by **plasticwingsband** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 10:10 pm

I've recently been able to play a Virtual Boy, and I gotta say that outside of the system itself, most of the games were pretty cool.

And of course, the Virtual Boy is what got Gunpei Yokoi working trade shows, even though he created the handheld console that is one of the few reason's that Nintendo's still alive. And Metroid. And then he died.

R.I.P. Gunpei Yokoi
1941 - 1997

Post by **Squirrelknight** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 11:32 pm

Zeta wrote:The fucking Virtual Boy is the worst system either. At least the Jaguar and N-Gage didn't have a high chance of causing permanent eye damage.

The VB had some interesting games. And atleast it didn't look like a toilet or a taco.

BlazeHedgehog · Post by **BlazeHedgehog** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 2:15 am

I had a Virtual Boy. Won it at a local contest they were holding at a Supermarket. Came with Mario Tennis.

Wasn't bad. Mario Tennis was extremely fun. It just took a hell of a lot of batteries, and that big fat ugly warning label printed on the box probably scared everyone else away (Not for use of children 7 or under). The $200 price tag probably didn't entice anybody a whole lot either.

(I, incidentally, got my money back - by the time I had returned it, in the two weeks since it's launch, it had dropped to $175. I bought my Game Gear with that money, plus Sonic Drift 2)

Trog13 · Post by **Trog13** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 2:52 am

I have multiple Virtual Boy. One in awesome shape, and my original one that is kind of crappy now. Virtual Boy was an awesome system. Wario Land, Mario Tennis, Red Alarm, Teleroboxer, these games are so bad ass. I've only played a few games on Jaguar, the one that I thought was great was Iron Soldier. Reminded me of Mechwarrior or something like it. I've never heard of the M2 before, but I also didn't know what the playstation was until about a year after it came out. I was more interested in the Sega and Nintendo systems. I had one of those blue Gamegears. I had it for about a week, then I traded it to a friend. I got a gameboy link cable and Kirby's Dreamland 2, awesome deal.

Light Speed · Post by **Light Speed** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 2:01 pm

The Virtual Boy was that red thing that you put your face up to and star games that were basically drawn in red, right? I remember playing Wario on that thing at a friends house for like 10 minutes then having to stop do to my terrible headache. That system was evil. Whenever my friend played long enough he would have the oval outline around his face from that damn thing.

gr4yJ4Y · Post by **gr4yJ4Y** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 7:07 pm

I had to have played that thing for at least a half hour straight once (when my parents thought lost me at Toys R Us... heheh...). It didn't bother me too much. Maybe that's why I'm so messed up...

The game was some kind've shooter that played something like a mix between Star Fox and the 2D standard slide-scrolling shooter at the time. It was pretty amazing back then.

Post by **Segaholic2** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 7:19 pm

Virtual Boy sucked. I can't believe people give Sega so much crap for the GameGear when that abomination exists.

Post by **Green Gibbon!** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 7:58 pm

The Game Gear was alright. It's the 32X there was no excuse for.

plasticwingsband · Post by **plasticwingsband** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 8:07 pm

Agreed.

Spazz · Post by **Spazz** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 8:18 pm

Does anyone think that Virtual Boy would be alot better if you were high while you were playing? Just a thought.

Post by **Delphine** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 8:54 pm

There are a lot of stupid things that would seem better if you were high while doing those stupid things. However, those things would still be stupid.

aso · Post by **aso** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 9:36 pm

Been covered.

Trog13 · Post by **Trog13** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 9:48 pm

I've never had problems playing virtual boy, usually after each level I'd just rub my eyes. People always say it sucked because if you were under 8, or something like that, it could mess up your eyes. I wonder how long you'd actually have to play it for that to happen.

Post by **Esrever** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 10:50 pm

Is there a working Virtual Boy emulator? I missed out on it.

(I'm using the phrase "missed out" very loosely.)

Post by **Segaholic2** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 10:51 pm

There was an announcement for one done by Richard Bannister, one of the biggest names in Mac emulators/ports, but it was later revealed to be a joke. That was the only one I can remember.

Ngangbius · Post by **Ngangbius** » Fri Jul 09, 2004 2:45 am

Doesn't the Virtual Boy goes for like $500 dollars on Ebay? *shrugs* I guess a rare item is a great item despite the questionable quality of said item as far as some people are concerned.

My father rented the Virtual Boy with a few games for 3 days for my brother and I. I only touched it for about 30 minutes total through the whole rental period. I think I still wore glasses at the time so I had to remove them so I could get a bit comfortable while using the device. It just became too much for my eyes despite being in awe for the first 30 seconds of using it and somewhat enjoying Mario Tennis. Oh well, at least it sorta looked good on paper.

And speaking of other crappy consoles, does anyone remember the 3D0? My dad also rented this system a long time ago and the only games that I liked were Gex and this Japanese-styled SRPG game called Guardian War. Though looking back, if someone game me a 3D0 and those two games, I probably wouldn't enjoy them now than when I was a kid.

Post by **Green Gibbon!** » Fri Jul 09, 2004 8:12 am

Is there a working Virtual Boy emulator?

About the closest thing to a finished VB emulator is Virtual-E. It only runs, like, three games and I don't think it has sound. It also hasn't been updated since, like, 1999 or something, so I think it's safe to say the project has been abandoned.