The Virtual Boy is particularly notable case in Nintendo's long history (especially during the eighties and nineties) of having excellent core conceptual ideas that were simply too far ahead of their time, as in too far ahead of the then current technological capabilities (and perhaps even the cultural Zeitgeist as well in some cases) and were thus rather botched in their execution.
Other examples of this history include: the Nintendo Knitting Machine (which let users design sweaters and the like on their Famicon, and then have it be knitted by an attached printer!), the Power Glove, the microphone built into the original Famicon controller, R.O.B. the robotic buddy, the Roll & Rocker, the Power Pad, and so. (I would honestly even put the Game Boy in this category by virtue of comparing it to Sega's Game Gear, if it weren't such a massive success!)
It's exciting that we've now reached the point where we can properly execute the core conceptual idea of the Virtual Boy vis-a-vis the likes of the Oculus Rift. Virtual reality consoles that now have sufficient graphics with a richer pallet than merely black-and-red, a strap attaching the headset to the player's head, and so on.