The triumph of most video games, and video game accessories is almost always down to functionality. No matter how great a game looks, or how slick a particular console was designed, aesthetics are somewhat secondary to popularity. In other words, if video games are a popularity contest, at least that popularity is based on how things actually work, rather than how they seem.
An exception to this rule is the Nintendo Power Glove, a video game accessory that is almost only valuable and interesting because of the way it looks and feels, rather than what it actually does. In the 1989 film The Wizard (a 100-minute Nintendo commercial masquerading as a family film), the villain of the movie Lucas Barton (Jackey Vinson) busts out the Power Glove and declares, “I love the Power Glove — it’s so bad.” By “bad,” Lucas meant “good” as in “cool” or “I’m bad, you know it” à la Michael Jackson. But, the irony here is that as an actual video game accessory, the Power Glove was literally bad. But if the Power Glove was really such a waste of time why do we still care so much?
