Hi. I recently bought a Virtual Boy, the only one I’ve ever owned, and the system was untested. It came with no games (and I don’t own any), and when I powered it on, nothing happened. So – my question is – do you need to have a game inserted into the system for it to work (like the NES), or is my machine just busted?

Thanks.

Hello and welcome, yes, you need a game inserted to the system for it to display anything. So you don’t really know anything about your system like this unfortunately.

The system won’t show anything onscreen without a game inserted. Can you hear a faint humming though?

When turned on, it does indeed produce a faint humming sound, so presumably it works. I’ll probably pick up a Mario’s Tennis cart just to make sure though.

Thanks for your help, guys!