News Want To Know The Real Scale Of The Virtual Boy's Failure? Visit A Japanese Game Shop

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Nintendo hasn't had to deal with all that many bruising setbacks during its time in the world of video games, but the Virtual Boy has to rank as one of the most dramatic.

Designed by Gunpei Yokoi, the man behind the legendary Game Boy and Game & Watch, the Virtual Boy seemed like a sure thing on paper. Riding high off the success of its previous hardware, there were lofty hopes for the table-mounted 32-bit system – yet it reportedly only sold 770,000 units worldwide (despite Nintendo of America boldly projecting sales of 1.5 million) and was quickly discontinued.

Yokoi, a man who had generated millions of dollars in revenue for the company, left Nintendo under a cloud soon afterwards.

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The scale of the console's commercial failure – and the sky-high hopes Nintendo clearly had for it, despite what has been written since – can be seen in the vast quantities of new "old" stock which regularly washes up in Japanese game shops.

These are brand-new games which have remained unsold since the mid-'90s, and often turn up in retailers in large numbers, presumably when boxes of software are found sitting in a warehouse somewhere.

This phenomena has been observed recently by UK-based retro game retailer Sore Thumb Retro Games, which is currently in Japan sourcing stock. "New old stock, brand new and I mean mint, Virtual boy games by their hundreds," the store writes on Facebook. "This chain must have bought out a warehouse full. I made a dint in the pile."

This isn't a story that's unique to this particular store, either; unsold Virtual Boy games can be found all over Japan.