While the initial boom of games has died down, the VR wars of the ’10s are still going, with Oculus, HTC, and Sony all competing for that potentially lucrative virtual reality pie; and while Nintendo has previously stated that they want to stay out of the virtual reality dogfight, a number of “breadcrumbs” and insider sources has led Nintendo World Report to state that Nintendo VR is coming as early this year.
It may seem strange given Nintendo’s past statements, but there’s a lot to corroborate this belief: CNET has reported on a secret “VR Mode” hidden in the Switch’s firmware, Nintendo filed a patent for a head-mounted VR accessory in 2016, and Reggie confirmed only a few months ago that the company was experimenting with VR.
Not to mention that Nintendo is part of the “VRM Consortium,” a joint enterprise of Japanese companies focused on developing international virtual reality businesses.
The real question is — what form will this VR take?
Some form of Labo integration seems like the sensible prediction, especially as it would make implementation cheap and easy compared to a lot of VR sets on the market.
That said, a more solid plastic VR system isn’t far out of the realm of possibility, either. Either way, I think it’s safe to assume we won’t be seeing the Virtual Boy 2 come out of this enterprise… or… will we…?
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Written by Amelia Fruzzetti
A writer and Nintendo fan based in Seattle, Washington. When not working for NinWire, she can be found eating pasta, writing stories, and wondering about when Mother 3 is finally going to get an official localization.
