Found something interesting while skipping through some old episodes of Mexican show Nintendomania on Youtube, looking for any Virtual Boy-related footage.

Here’s what appears to be a prototype version of the floor-standing Design Phase Virtual Boy Display Unit! There were dozens of these at some convention, but I have no idea which it was exactly. Perhaps someone who knows Spanish can extract some more info from the video linked below?

In 1996, they also had at least two such units standing in their studio.

I don’t even want to start listing all the differences to the final Store Display model, there’s just so many. 🙂

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Nice find! That last screenshot shows a image of what appears to be the Virtual Boy prototype box on the wall there. pretty cool.

That box is the prototype USA box design which features a stylized prototype VB unit. As seen here for example: http://www.planetvb.com/uploads/newbb/1643_56c8b7812aa51.jpg

Would like to have their print-ready super high resolution copy of that sexy box variant. 🙂

Hey check this out. That same episode of Nintendomania that shows those prototype kiosks, also shows the 1995 Nintendo Annual Report on top of a table during the end credits.

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Good eye there, vuefinder83! I don’t think I’d have noticed that little detail.

Good eye there, vuefinder83!

Thanks! My vision is excellent thanks to many years of VB use. 🙂

I don’t even want to start listing all the differences to the final Store Display model, there’s just so many. 🙂

This display sure does have alot of differences compared to the final displays. In fact there’s so many I’m starting to think that this display might be a final version of a Virtual Boy display that was exclusive only to mexico maybe?…

How early of a “prototype” can this display possibly be when the VB head units attached to them appear to be normal ones with normal visors with the display having a “early” marquee, but the prototype store display pictured here http://www.planetvb.com/content/hardware/displays/dphase/counter_version/protocounter.png is so early that it has a shoshinkai prototype unit attached to it with a puffy visor but a final design of the marquee?

Am I missing something here?…

Yeah, that theory makes a lot of sense to me. Perhaps a different (local) manufacturer made these for Mexico?

I guess it would help to know which event the above images are from.

I know that prototypes and pre-productions almost always look cheaper than the final product, but these displays just look like they’re a kind of low budget display rather than a prototype. I still think they were made by Design Phase, because even though there are alot of differences, they also do have similarities, enough so that if they were made by a different company, then I would say that company was ripping off Design Phase.