R.O.B the Robot
R.O.B – or Robotic Operating Buddy – was a peripheral created by Nintendo in 1985 to support the Nintendo Entertainment System. Its wireless design was to function as an additional controller or a virtual ‘Player 2’ as it would respond to visual flashes on the TV screen and operate by itself.
Originally created to make retailers believe that the NES was a toy rather than a video game system (following the famous Video Game Crash of 1983), R.O.B was cute and sweet but realistically not very successful. A peripheral that required even more peripherals of his own, R.O.B would interact using Gyros, little discs that he would then be able to drop onto buttons that acted as a controller. As well as being impractical and very demanding of batteries, R.O.B was only designed to work on two video games, Stack Up and Gyromite. Both games feature the crazy scientist, Professor Hector, and can’t be played without R.O.B.
While being a failure in its role as a peripheral, R.O.B has gone on to be a bit of a legend, featuring in titles including Game Boy Camera, Pikmin 2, WarioWare, and Star Fox 64 as a cameo and as even an unlockable character in Super Smash Bros. Many people consider now that the idea and concept behind R.O.B was actually very smart, just poorly executed.
