The Virtual Boy will go down as Nintendo's shortest-lived system, staying on the market for just six months in 1995 before its mercy killing. The system consisted of bulky, bright red headgear that completely obscured a gamer's vision as he tried to play games rendered in rudimentary 3-D graphics. It was expensive (retailing at $180) and came with a limited slate of games (only 14 were ever available in the U.S.) Nintendo decided to focus its efforts on the far more successful and traditional Nintendo 64 system, relegating the Virtual Boy to the recycling bin.
The 50 Worst Inventions
From the zany to the dangerous to the just plain dumb, here is TIME's list (in no particular order) of some of the world's bright ideas that just didn't work out