The Virtual Boy was a famous flop in Nintendo's back catalogue. It only amassed 22 games to its name, with Mario only getting two titles on the console. Oddly, it's Wario's 'Virtual Boy Wario Land' that's probably the most famous game on the console, though there was originally supposed to be a 'Virtual Boy Mario Land' that may well have changed that.
Images of the gameplay have been discovered by rabidrodent on Bluesky while trawling through a folder on The Internet Archive. The general consensus is that they're press shots from Nintendo, but it's been 30 years since this game was cancelled, and for many gamers this will be the first time that they've had the chance to see these images easily and clearly.
As Polygon recently covered, it's widely known that no one actually got to play the game or see what it would look like, viewing it instead on a TV using 3D glasses at the Winter Consumer Electronics Show. Other than the fact that the Virtual Boy was a migraine-inducing nightmare, the only other reason I can think of as to why Nintendo didn't release but opted for Wario Land is that they didn't want to associate Mario Land with a failing consoles, whereas Wario could easily take the brunt of the failure as he's not as important a character for Nintendo.
It's hard to believe that the Virtual Boy never had that classic Mario experience on it, though most people can only play one for about 5 minutes without wanting to lash out irrationally, so I guess it's not too much of a big deal...
