The Nintendo Power Glove was not good. It’s important that you know that. The Power Glove was ambitious, impressive, even important – one of the very first mainstream devices that let you control a game using your body instead of just your thumbs – but it was not good. In some ways, its not-good-ness is a key part of the story.
The Power Glove showed up in the late 1980s, at a complicated time for the gaming industry, when Nintendo was a hugely powerful force for the future of fun. But the Power Glove wasn’t really even a Nintendo product. It started as a research lark, became a toy, and only wound up with Nintendo’s name on it after a part …
