My VidPro card collection has grown a bit since the last time I spoke of them. About a year ago, or so, I made a thread called “Interesting Galactic Pinball VidPro Insert Card”, where I talked about how different this card was when compared to the other VB VidPro cards we were familiar with. Here, I would like to start-off with this one, as it just may be a very early representation (pre-production) of what all the VB VidPro cards looked like at one point in time.
Next up is a Mario Clash insert card. This one is very interesting as well, since it seems to be half way to its final design. This card has a normal front-side but shares the same early design on the back of it like the above Galactic Pinball card, and like the Galactic Pinball card, it also has a different game play image that differs from the retail version of the game.
It’s missing the model number above the barcode too.
And then this Wario Land card…it has the same things going on with it as the above Mario Clash card.
I now own two Panic Bomber cards. These are more like the VB VidPro cards we’re familiar with.
oh yeah….I FOUND THE F***IN’ DRAGON HOPPER CARD!!!!!!!!
What can I say about this one, it’s the Dragon Hopper VidPro card…
The only thing about this card that makes it different than the rest, are the numbers printed along the bottom white border. I’m not sure what all the numbers mean, but I’m pretty sure that the “0896” was its supposed release date.
So… What do you all think? Crazy shtuff, right?!
Thanks for the comments, everyone! I appreciate all your posts!!
Benjamin Stevens wrote:
Kk-Man wrote:
These look totally awesome dude.
What are those exactly ? Was it used in stores to promote games ?In stores that kept all of their games behind glass, these cards were put outside the glass, so that prospective customers could look and see what was on the back of the game boxes, without having to get an employee to open the glass doors for them to look at the back of an actual game box. Of course, the VidPro cards were sent to stores before the games were released and shipped, so the Dragon Hopper VidPro card got sent to a store, even though the actual game itself never got commercially released.
Yup, that is correct. I have some great vivid memories about the whole VidPro card system and how it worked…
First, you would pick-out the card for the game you were interested in purchasing, if you made the decision to purchase the game, you would then grab a paper slip that looked like a receipt located in the card slot. This slip had a barcode on the bottom of it for a cashier to scan for purchase. The cashier would’ve then stapled the slip to your actual receipt, and you were now ready to head over to the redemption center to retrieve your game. The redemption clerk would’ve ripped the slip off of the receipt (or left it on) to grab the game from store stock. Then they send you off happy 😀
Benjamin Stevens wrote:
You know, if there is any correlation between a game being rated by the ESRB and the same game having had a VidPro card made for it, there could very well be VidPro cards out there for Zero Racers and Virtual League Baseball 2, traces of which have yet to be found.
That’s an interesting thought… What I find interesting though, is the fact that the VidPro display order form basically tells us that insert cards showing actual Virtual Boy hardware and accessories exist. That means there’s probably a card that shows the unreleased US Virtual Boy headphones in US packaging. The headphones are even mentioned a few times in the Virtual Boy’s manual.
The “Virtual Boy 1995 New Release Subscription” is most likely cards for all the games that were available at launch and for through-out the first year of the VB’s release.
