TOKYO -- The battle lines were drawn in the war for the hearts of the world's video-game addicts this week as Nintendo Co. Ltd unveiled a "virtual reality system" it touts as the next generation in game systems.


Game developers and fans, however, were generally unimpressed by the 32-bit "Virtual Boy," which Nintendo plans to start selling in April for 19,800 yen ($200).


To use the game, a player presses his or her face against a viewer that blocks out other light. Inside are two light-emitting diode displays, essentially a screen for each eye, giving a 3-D effect. There is also a small speaker for each ear for sound effects.


Although the name sounds like Game Boy, a hand-held Nintendo system, Virtual Boy is meant as a table-top machine, although Nintendo will sell a harness so users can stand while playing.


The toy's three-dimensional, high-resolution graphics, in shades of red on a black background, make characters and other images seem to jump out and fall back while moving through space.


Still, most people interviewed at a trade show where the machine was introduced were disappointed that the system is not full-color and doesn't "track" -- the industry term for images that follow a user's movements as he, for example, turns his head.


"It's not really good looking yet," Hiroki Sasagawa, 23, a game software developer, said after pulling his eyes away from the view piece, mounted on a stand, and releasing the hand-held control panel, which resembles the one in systems now available.


Nintendo spokesman Yasuhiro Minagawa said the company opted for monochrome because a full-color, 3-D system would have been "unaffordable." True virtual-reality full-color systems -- in which a user dons a helmet and gloves that read his movements -- can cost $15,000.


Nintendo plans to release the battery-operated system in April in both Japan and the United States and says it will add two to three software titles a month to the three it has now: "Mario Bros.," "Space Pinball," and a boxing program.


"I didn't understand the movement of 'Telero Boxer.' It seemed like just punching, but I couldn't get out of the way,'' complained Kenichi Hamada, 25, another developer.


Virtual Boy is Nintendo's first 32-bit machine, with twice the computer processing power of the 16-bit machines that currently dominate the market.


The four big game makers -- Sony Corp., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Sega Enterprises and Nintendo -- have all now unveiled 32-bit platforms, promising a good fight before even more advanced machines reach toy-store shelves in late 1995.


Sony, a new entrant to the multibillion-dollar video game market, and old-timers Sega and Nintendo are likely to battle for control of the video-game market as Matsushita, the world's biggest consumer electronics maker, takes a beating, analysts said.


David Benda, electronics analyst at Barclays de Zoete Wedd Securities in Tokyo, thinks Nintendo is likely to emerge unscathed from the latest skirmishes before conquering the video game market in 1996.


"As you know Nintendo has a 64-bit game coming in the autumn of next year," Benda said. "I believe that when they put the system on the market it will be the winning one."


Benda said Nintendo would do well because its approach to the game market was right.


"Nintendo's strategy is right: price the machine cheaply ... and then make money on software," he said. "Nintendo has always pursued this strategy and ... I think it is the only right one for the game market." Nintendo plans to sell 3 million of its systems and 14 million software packages in Japan in the first year. It does not have projected sales figures for the United States.


The company developed the LED technology with Reflection Technology Inc., a small privately held company in Waltham, Massachussets, in which Nintendo has bought an undisclosed "significant" minority stake.


Nintendo, which had 119 billion yen ($1.21 billion) in profits on 550 billion yen in sales last year, said it was the first equity position it had ever taken in a U.S.-based company. (AP, Reuters)