Just to leave note that the item has been sent and hopefully will be with Sie1984 soon. A very friendly user, by the way.

I think I might have one. DM me if interested,

Anything that is able to store more than one game would be definitely an improvement 🙂

(Although I’m guessing it has to do with the GB emulator somehow… probably a pack of preloaded ROMS?)

What? I’m equally baffled! Anyone knows anything?

I guess this one deserves to be noteworthy, although really expensive.

http://buyee.jp/item/yahoo/auction/h290142889

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Alex uwu wrote:
Hi there!
Can i help you with the translations?

Thank you for your offer 🙂 But no need, really, I’m Spanish!

Last but not least, Ultima Generación. This magazine had a really short run (12 numbers only, one year, from March 95 to March 96), but it’s particular in the way they tried to focus in last generation consoles, getting really accurate and technical. This might be the reason of their demise, but even the VB got a huge coverage in number 8. The VB was also covered in the first and the last numbers of the magazine. A lot of information but nothing new, though. The only interesting snippet is in the last number, 12, which states that Nintendo is planning to relaunch the VB together with a port of Mario RPG. A long shot, isn’t it?

Amazing work, Benjamin. I can only bow to you!

Wow, that’s awesome. It’s always nice to spot the differences and so on, but this last card… no words.

Reel Big Fish wrote:
Wow! The pictures they used to advertise the VB in the Superjuegos 51 Julio 1996 15.png were from Bound High, and is that other one dragon hopper? And also, they were originally going to release Kirby’s Air Ride for the N64?!

I hadn’t noticed but you are right, that was a Game Cube game in the end. I’ve been able to find this video of the E3 (and apparently it was cancelled first and then restarted for the Cube).

Kirby’s Air Ride N64

Good eye!

vuefinder83 wrote:
Awesome stuff, mmora. These were nice to see along with translations. Thanks a bunch for posting!

Have you ever come across any VB merchandise such as shirts, hats, pins/buttons, that were exclusive only to Mexico? (just curious)

Nope, but remember I’m from Spain (and these are Spanish magazines, not Mexican) so the Virtual Boy wasn’t ever launched here 🙁

I spotted to extra nice snippets in both the Superjuegos magazine for July 1996 (number 51, p.14-15) and Nintendo Acción (number 44 p.19).

– Nintendo Acción reads:

From the darkness to the light in three days Rumours and only rumours were condemning the Virtual Boy. In the E3, Nintendo demonstrated how the 3D machine still has years ahead of itself. And to celebrate it, they showed a couple new programs, Dragon Hopper and Bound High, that were loved by the people visiting the ministand VB, quite big by the way, in place for the occasion.

– Superjuegos reads:

The sadly failed Virtual Boy also had its share of space, with titles such as DRAGON HOPPER and BOUND HIGH.

It’s lovely to see the screenshots in page 15 🙂

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Thanks for the post and the scans. I love reading different takes on the virtual boy, and in another language is always interesting too. I didnt know AC adapter in spanish was ‘fuente de alimentación’, thats kinda funny if you directly translate it (source of food.. LOL).

You are welcome. I still have a few coming! “Fuente de alimentación” is funny to translate literally, indeed 🙂 But in the end, it kinda makes sense… it’s a source of juice/food for the Virtual Boy to rock! 😀

And the last mention in the Nintendo Acción magazine is the longest. It’s number 35, October 1995, p.16-19.

The main point in this article (“The USA plays already, in Europe they dream about it”). is that “The USA market will test the possibilities of the VB” and “Its launch in the US contrasts with the uncertainty around the launch in our country.”

As vuefinder83 said in a previous post, here it’s also odd how they still use pre-production images (and titles) three months after its release in JP/USA. Screenshots are, again, from the tech demos. At least descriptions are accurate.

There is also a debate regarding whether it is portable or not “nobody can think of a person playing VB in a bus stop” but it is “a new concept”.

“When is the VB coming to Spain?” Never, probably (in other words). They summarize it as “respect to the new consoles, the strong competition, respect to the prices and, all in all, that the VB concept doesn’t have repercusion over the public.” “Nintendo Spain is insecure regarding how the VB would work in the Spanish market.” This being said, “If the VB works well in USA, Nintendo will release the console in Europe.”.

As we all know, that never happened.

Two more Nintendo Acción,

– Number 29, April 1995, p.13. A small snippet talks about new games for the VB. “It’s obvious that the real quality of its games cannot be reflected on paper (we already told you that Nintendo is working on a system to faithfully transfer the VB games to the magazines’ pages).” Two games from Kemco, it says, one being called V League Baseball. The screenshots, as you know, have nothing to do with Kemco 😉

– Number 32, July 1995, p.14. Although it keeps surprising me that no magazine in Spain ever talked about the Japanese launch, at least here the American one is well documented, in prices and dates. The funny part? In the second paragraph there is an overstatement “There are more than 100 companies working on the project”. Overall is quite sensationalist.

So, Nintendo Acción is next. This magazine is the official Nintendo mag in Spain, edited by the same publisher as Hobby Consolas. First, this is number 26 from January 1995, p.10-11.

The Virtual Boy snippet is, again, quite plain and absolutely based in the press release. Games mentioned are, as always, Teleroboxer, Mario Bros VB and Space Pinball. No release date for Europe but their estimation is either Summer or, if delayed due to holidays, September.

Most interesting is the last part, with an interesting dive into the Ultra 64 (mostly rumours that didn’t happen in the end, such as launch dates, CD for the 64, etc…). Another interesting snippet talks about a possible CD for the SNES; confirming that Nintendo didn’t close the deal with Sony, so the PlayStation happened, and the same happened with Philips, originating the CDi. But the project is not yet closed, according to the magazine. “It could be in the final stages of development.”

Nice info, guys.

StarWing could be StarFox and the like

(Just to clarify, Starwing is the PAL name for Starfox, so no confusion there).

On Rock Man I disagree; the original name is Rockman because all characters are music-based (Rock, Roll, Blues, Forte..). The decision to change it to Mega Man it’s a one guy thing: Joseph Morici, Capcom’s Senior Vice-President at the time, who disliked the original name and changed it almost unilaterally. This left some contradictions however, as Rock changed to Mega but Roll kept the same, Blues changed to Proto and Forte to Bass (which is related to music too). Weird choices.

I am pretty sure that they’re referring to the demos shown behind closed doors at WCES ’95

After watching the video I do fully agree. There is a bit of fantasy in the snippet but it’s clear it’s based in those images shown at the WCES. Very interesting footage.

Thanks for your feedback, I’ll keep it up!

Before moving to Nintendo Acción (with some large articles), I’ll post these two from the Club Nintendo in Spain. Once managed by Spaco (the NES distributor) in 1994-95 the magazine was in hands of ERBE, the biggest videogame distributor in Spain, who was in charge of the Super Nintendo and the Game Boy.

– First one, from Dicember 1994/January 1995 is quite plain, basically reproducing the press release as seen on others.

– The April/May issue, however, is quite surprising as most of the content seems to be made up. I’ll provide a translation:

The press was impressed by the Virtual Boy due to the variety and quality of the games shown for this prodigy of a console in the last CES in Las Vegas. Titles like Road Racer (a Formula 1 game with quick and fluent action), Vector Blaster (a flight simulator quite close to Starwing) and Teleroboxing (a first-person robot fighting game) surprised to the specialized press. But, without question, the star of the show was a Mario game, without name yet, that is in the works for the VB. It’s a magnificent adventure, similar to Zelda, in which Mario talks. Hudson Soft also announced that they are working in new titles for the Virtual Boy, and we know that a lot of companies are going to follow, developing new products for Nintendo’s last wonder.

¿Anyone heard of these names at any point? I don’t know anything of a F1 game (and I guess that’s a confusion) but Vector Blaster actually looks as if they were calling Red Alarm by a different name…

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Let’s continue with Superjuegos, the second most important magazine at that time. These are quite simple, however.

– Number 34, February 1995: a short snippet that reads that the “Virtua [sic] Boy is the main weapon that Nintendo has to fight the Mega Drive 32X”, from the Winter CES 1995.

– Number 38, June 1995: again, a short snipped regarding the Virtual Boy in the E3, this time with the final console (check the buttons). Some games are called by their prototype names (Wario Cruise, Mario’s Dream Tennis) while others are final. Release date in the US is correctly stated and there is no mention of the Japanese release.

– In number 48, April 1996, a reader asks about the Virtual Boy. The editor compares it again to the Game Boy and then states “I can tell you that it didn’t get the expected success and sales are expected to rise with the future launches of Star Wing and Zelda.” A little optimistic, isn’t it? It’s probably made up.

Next to come, the third in order of relevance: Nintendo Acción, the official Nintendo Spanish Magazine.

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