Hello all.
I bought a Virtual Boy near the end of its life cycle, around the time the N64 came out. I put it away about 20 years ago and just recently pulled it out of storage and dusted it off. To my surprise, it turned on, and there were no Image problems! There was one problem though:
I can’t play any games. The system successfully boots up and displays the warning/startup screen. After that, it seems not to recognize any input from the controller, as whatever I press has no effect, except for one strange exception: When I press the ‘down’ key on the right D-pad, the screen flickers black for a moment, and then goes right back to the warning/startup screen.
I currently have Galactic Pinball loaded into the system, and have not been able to locate/try any other games.
Has anyone else ever had this issue? Could it be the controller? The game? The console itself?
In addition to the display, the audio seems to be working correctly, as there is some music playing during the startup screen.
Any help would be appreciated; thanks!

I highly suspect the mainboard, I have seen that once before on a lot of VB’s I had to fix for Mawa. When I replaced the mainboard, problems were gone.

Tough to say for sure of course, but it is pretty likely the issue.

Thanks for the reply.
How would one go about diagnosing and/or repairing a mainboard issue?
Also, I have done some more trouble-shooting.
First, I disassembled and cleaned the controller, so I doubt that the controller is the issue. In fact, it was in pretty great condition.
Second, I’ve tried a few more games – Panic Bomber and Mario Clash. By pressing ‘down’ on the right D-pad, both of these games will go past the startup screen, into the “4 corners” screen and past the autopause screen all the way into the game-specific intro animation, but still only accepts input from ‘down’ on the right D-pad (at most, this allows me to reset the intro).
Again, any help is appreciated; thanks!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Nintendo-Virtual-Boy-3D-VB-MOTHERBOARD-CPU-repair-parts-/122528717248?hash=item1c8747d9c0:g:RAoAAOSwn-tZMMTA

^^^^^^^^
What he said, you will have to buy a new mainboard. No other fix, I couldn’t find one at least.

Cool, thank you both for the info