Anticipating sluggish holiday sales for home video game machines, one of the world's largest game manufacturers this week borrowed a page from the sports world: Wait till next year!
Nintendo of America announced a "virtual reality" game system, to be called Virtual Boy, that should hit the shelves in the spring.
The U.S. market for game systems is saturated with machines by Nintendo and its rivals, Sega of America, Atari Corp., 3DO Corp. and the latest entry, Sony Corp. Analysts say the buying public of mostly teen-age boys is bored with the current generation of games powered by 16-bit microprocessors and is waiting for something new.
Nintendo, the Redmond, Wash., arm of the Japanese game maker, said it believes it has come up with a new concept in Virtual Boy, which will not require a hookup to a television set.
Virtual Boy is a stand-alone tabletop unit about the size of a notebook computer, with a black rubber mount that closes off all outside light when a user presses his face against it.
"It's a little like a theater," said Peter Main, Nintendo's vice president for marketing. When a viewer looks into the box, "what he sees is a very rich black background, like looking into the night sky. The characters are brought to life in a very rich red color. It's almost laser quality."
A monochrome display of red and black gives a sense of infinite depth in all directions, Mr. Main said. While the characters are miniature in scale, they seem to be full-sized because the image is near the eye, according to Reflection Technology Inc., the Waltham, Mass., company that developed the technology for Virtual Boy. Nintendo also said it had acquired a minority stake in Reflection Technology, the first time the big game maker has bought into a U.S.-based company.
Nintendo officials said the system is expected to sell for about $200 when it is available, probably in April. They said they also plan about 25 software titles in the first year, priced at $50 to $75 each.
A host of new game systems is expected on the U.S. market next year, including ones by Sega, Nintendo, Sony and Atari. John Taylor, a games industry analyst for L.H. Alton & Co. in San Francisco, said Wall Street is taking a wait-and-see approach about the new systems.
"As always, it's how cool the experience is that is going to determine how successful the games are," Mr. Taylor said.