As a game dev, I get to go to GDC every year, and this year the Videogame History Museum put together a spread dedicated to the “History of Nintendo,” stretching all the way back to the Color TV Game. There were Nintendo consoles of all kinds set up for the public to play, including the Virtual Boy. However, most of these systems were in mint or near mint condition except for– you guessed it– our red and black friend.

The VB was mounted on the display stand, which although it was pretty neat that they had one, the adjustable piece was broken (too loose) and as a result I had to rest the head unit on my face as I played. The VB was loaded with Red Alarm, but as you can see in the attached photo, the right display suffered from the glitchy lines problem. I suspect this is why a lot of people would walk up to it, look in for a few seconds, then leave.

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The text on the placard next to it reads:

“In 1995, the videogame market was literally packed with options, so it is no surprise that Nintendo’s unusual Virtual Boy system came and went in a flash. A standalone console, the Virtual Boy features a red and black display with impressive built-in 3D capabilities, if you can get through more than 15 minutes without a migraine! Seriously, we love the Virtual Boy, which will always hold a place in the history of videogaming.”

I’d rather it not be shown at all…then shown messed up 😛

Once again, another description compiled after 2 minutes of Internet “research”.

I would have camped out by the VB and told the real history of its development, ad campaign, release, and eventual discontinuation. It upsets me how it has gone down in history with blurbs made up of incorrect and misleading information.

Thanks for sharing Blitter. It is really neat to see one out in the wild like that. I only wish it could have made a better impression.

With Nintendo being so perfect, what with saving the industry and inventing the video game, there needs to be one Nintendo console for everyone to gather around to hate. Unfortunately, that console is the VB. Misinformation has to be spread in order to complete the hate circle.

This is all true, I read about it on the internet.

To be honest before I found this site and before I really “read” into everything VB, I would have thought the same thing. I recall not even batting an eye at the VB back in the 90’s, hell I didn’t look at the NGPC or the Turbografx, but now all three of these I would play over my PS3 or Xbox 360.

The VB has some neat and fun games, like the NGPC, I wish it would have kept going at least another year to push out some incredible games.

Wynd