The success of the 3DS has vindicated Gunpei Yokoi and the Virtual Boy

[DonFerrari]

RolStoppable said:

Johnw1104 said:

...Flamebait? All he said was he appreciates the 3D of the 3DS (which I did as well whenever a game opted to actually take advantage of it) and that it vindicates Gunpei's original vision for the Virtual Boy. That's an opinion, not flamebait lol

The 3DS wasn't some outrageous success like the DS, but in an era when people wondered if handheld gaming would persist at all it still managed to sell quite well, especially when compared with its only contemporary competition. With the explosion of the mobile market this was easily the most difficult environment Nintendo ever released a handheld into, so to still approach Gameboy Advanced numbers (~70 million to ~80 million) is no small feat, and it certainly does not belong in the same breath as the undeniable sales failure that was the Wii U.

I would not say that any of this vindicates the "Virtual Boy" that was actually released, as that was a flawed product from the start. It does, to some extent, show that Gunpei's original vision for the Virtual Boy was quite impressive, and if there's a criticism I have to lob at him it's that he ought to have recognized earlier in development that such a vision would be too expensive to achieve with the technology of the time. "Vindication" is a strong word, then, but one can certainly better understand his thinking with the benefit of retrospect.

Yes, flamebait. The OP is basically presenting an argument that is as credible as Donald Trump's claim that global warming doesn't really exist and is an invention of China.

Any success that can be attributed to the 3DS is in spite of 3D. There's the early price cut that resulted in Nintendo posting their first fiscal year loss since they had entered the video game business. There's the 2DS which was not planned and only exists because the market's rejection of 3D was so strong that Nintendo became convinced that such a desperate move is necessary to stabilize the platform. There's the New 2DS XL which gave consumers finally a fair choice between 3DS and 2DS, because the initial 2DS did not have a clamshell design; and what do we see consumers choosing? They buy the New 2DS XL in higher numbers than the 3DS models now. 

And finally, there's Switch. If 3D was a success like the OP wants you to believe, then why is it non-existent in Switch? If 3D was a selling point, then it should have become standard and Switch should be floundering for not having it; instead Switch flies off the shelves, showing how unnecessary and unwanted 3D was. Switch also casts major doubt on the belief that mobile was killing handheld gaming. I never believed it because touchscreen inputs are so limited that they in turn greatly limit the variety of games. But those who did believe it and probably still believe it... they should really ask themselves if it isn't more probable that self-inflicted damage by Nintendo was a much bigger cause of the decline from DS to 3DS.

As for the Virtual Boy, the story is that Yokoi was opposed to releasing it in the state that it was. I've touched on this in my first post in this thread.

So the OP is a flamebait because you were the only one with the urge to flame it?