Although the Digital Boy was each a industrial and demanding failure, the console’s infamy is a part of what has made it such a captivating piece of Nintendo’s historical past. Unique items are nonetheless going for a whole bunch of {dollars} on bidding websites, and hobbyists have spent years conserving the Digital Boy alive by way of emulation and homebrew video games. For an extended whereas, it appeared like Nintendo needed nothing greater than for the general public to overlook that the Digital Boy ever existed. However over time, the corporate has turn into extra snug acknowledging and even joking concerning the system by way of references in video games like Tremendous Smash Bros. Melee, Tomodachi Life, and Luigi’s Mansion 3.
Wanting again on the Nintendo 3DS and newer experiments just like the Nintendo Change and Labo, it wasn’t precisely shocking to be taught that the Digital Boy was being resurrected as a Change peripheral designed for use whereas enjoying basic Digital Boy video games on Nintendo Change On-line. There’s a nifty poetry to Nintendo’s worst-selling console being reimagined as a flowery peripheral for its most profitable system of all time. All the pieces concerning the new Digital Boy’s launch speaks to Nintendo being assured sufficient to revisit considered one of its greatest failures and switch it right into a flex that’s fairly actually designed to prop up the Change household of consoles.
Once I lately spent a while enjoying with the brand new Digital Boy, although, Nintendo’s confidence on this $100 facet quest didn’t really feel completely justified. The headset / stand combo is a beautiful piece of retro tech that’s snug sufficient to shove your face into. And although I used to be type of hoping to expertise some disorienting visible weirdness, the console’s stereoscopic lenses didn’t go away me with a headache. However there’s a clunkiness to the best way the Digital Boy’s video games performed that made the system really feel extra like an aged novelty moderately than a system I might see myself spending some critical time with.
The most important promoting level to this factor is that it’s faithfully re-creating elements of the unique console that labored whereas smoothing over a few of the roughness that led to it flopping within the ’90s. But when retro nostalgia isn’t actually your jam, you may need to go on the plastic mannequin and take into account dusting off your previous Labo equipment.
As somebody who by no means performed the unique Digital Boy and tends to search out VR headsets uncomfortable to put on, I used to be pleasantly stunned at how properly my face match into the brand new peripheral, which is supposed to face on a desk and be used with a controller after you insert your Nintendo Change or Change 2 into it. Not like my cardboard Labo headset — which was susceptible to letting exterior mild leak in — the plastic Digital Boy was in a position to plunge me into complete darkness whereas I used to be sitting in a well-lit occasion house.
That darkness made the redness — which could be custom-made to different colours — of the Digital Boy’s monochromatic sport choice display screen pop as I browsed by way of the restricted library of 3D titles. Nintendo says that by the tip of this yr, it plans to launch 14 totally different Digital Boy video games by way of its Nintendo Change On-line + Growth Pack subscription bundle, which prices $50 a yr for particular person accounts and $80 for household plans. The primary batch of Digital Boy video games is due out on February seventeenth when the $100 peripheral and its cheaper $25 cardboard counterpart are being launched.
Throughout my time with the Digital Boy, I discovered myself charmed however slightly underwhelmed whereas enjoying video games like Galactic Pinball, Teleroboxer, and a brand new port of The Mansion of Innsmouth — a title that had beforehand solely been launched in Japan. The video games ran completely superb and regarded like what you’ll count on from some extent in Nintendo’s historical past when it was experimenting with a brand new strategy to make its video games really feel immersive. As spectacular as this lens know-how may need been when the unique Digital Boy was launched, it pales compared to what Nintendo managed to perform with the 3DS, and it by no means managed to totally trick my eyes into considering that I used to be enjoying a sport in 3D.
Paradoxically, it was extra aesthetically simplistic video games with vector graphics like 3-D Tetris and Crimson Alarm that felt like they had been actually pulling me in with their novel method to presenting three-dimensional house. There’s additionally one thing to be mentioned for the truth that enjoying these video games in any kind has turn into way more troublesome over time. This new peripheral won’t precisely set off a brand new wave of Digital Boy sport preservation, however it’s going to make them infinitely extra accessible — particularly for folk who weren’t round throughout the unique console’s transient lifespan.
Although Nintendo didn’t give me hands-on time with the cardboard Digital Boy, I got here away way more desirous about making an attempt that out and seeing what these video games may seem like on a Labo. The plastic mannequin positively seems to be cool and can in all probability scratch a sure itch for many who want they’d been in a position to personal a Digital Boy again within the ’90s. However in 2026, these sorts of 3D video games simply really feel a bit too dated to warrant the worth of admission if you happen to aren’t already paying for an NSO subscription.