Either I’m the luckiest mother f***er in the world and just found the same exact unique Virtual Boy unit that I lost on Ebay like 8 years ago…
http://www.planetvb.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=6227&post_id=33090#forumpost33090
…or there is more than one of these unique units in existence.
When I received this in the mail, the very first thing I noticed when I pulled the unit out of its packaging was the weight of this head unit, it’s heavy as hell! This is because the unique base plate is made of solid metal, it’s almost as heavy as the head unit itself.
I personally don’t know what to make of this unit, it would just all be assumptions.
Gang, we might have another mystery on our hands! 🙂
Benjamin Stevens wrote:
Yeah, I have to agree with you there. The base plate itself certainly shows that it was intended for this unit to be put out on some sort of display for demonstration purposes, for a lot of different people to be able to try out the Virtual Boy in a comfortable setting. The presence of the demo tap shows that this unit was very likely in use before or around the time of the beginning of mass production of VB units. I guess the only questions that remain are:
1. Was the display a custom one, made by someone either who had to make up for the fact that Nintendo had no proper demonstration display at the time or else who could not acquire one of Nintendo’s proper displays at the time?
2. Was the display actually made by Nintendo, in which case such a rare display has yet to be found in the wild?
I’ve been putting a lot of thought into this base plate the past couple of days, and I think my most recent findings might actually answer both of your questions! 😉
I decided to remove the head unit from my counter display to maybe get some better ideas for the actual use of the base plate. I was blown away when I removed the head unit and the support bracket wich holds the head unit in place…
The shape of the dust from the support bracket and a normal VB head unit forms the shape of the unique base plate! (see first picture)
So I then placed the unit with the unique base plate over the dust formation, and it lined up perfectly, even the two holes on the base plate match up to the screw holes used to screw the support bracket in place. I was even able to screw the unique head unit right to the display, safely and well screwed by using the displays original screws for the support bracket…
I could only assume this, but it seems to me that the unique base plate was the creation of Design Phase, as a early concept on a way to secure head units to displays perhaps?
Never added mine in this second thread, just the original. Came from a Nintendo Rep whose job was to repair kiosks and such, brand new in the white box!
No other accessories were included.
Same unique base.
