Benjamin Stevens wrote:
Looks pretty “handy” 🙂

Don’t quit your day job! 😉

My case has something I’ve never seen on any other VB Blockbuster case – it’s a metal plate around the handle that’s designed so that, when you pull up on the handle, it locks in place against the case, and two “lips” grab the ridges in the case, preventing it from falling open. This was clearly a back-up to prevent disaster if someone went to pick up the case without snapping it closed. The only downside is that the handle won’t fold down far with it in place, so I usually remove it. I just put it back on for these pics.

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Well, there have certainly been more than 2 on ebay, so I’d chalk that up to hyperbole. (I also own one.)

Not sure why “Sega” is in the title, other than to try to garner more views.

Because it was one of the first releases, before it was clear the system was going to bomb, and they WAY over-produced them. Then nobody bought it because it wasn’t even one of the better VB games. So there are tons of them that were never opened.

Unfortunately, the videogame hobby is filled with unscrupulous people. Years ago, I sold a very rare Dreamcast prototype game on ebay. It required a special DC boot disc, which went with it in the auction. WIthout the boot disc, it was pretty much worthless. A guy bought it, then wrote to me a couple of days after he received it to plead that he couldn’t really afford it, and asked me to let him return it for a refund. He was relentless. But I knew the guy’s rep – he had clearly copied it, and was trying to defraud me. I declined.

He later listed the game on ebay, but wasn’t including the boot disc, and failed to mention that the game woudn’t run without it. What a sleazebag.

Unfortunately, too many of us have stories like that.

In all the years I’ve been collecting VB stuff (since it was released), I’ve never seen this.

Welcome!

It’s a denim shirt. I have one.

Wrong pic?

If they were duped, they may have a recourse through ebay.

So, I have a friend in Japan who owns a couple of vintage game stores, and also happens to be a huge VB fan. I asked him which game was more rare, VLab or VBowl. Here’s his response: “I think Nintendo never announced production number of VB games. I guess minimum production number exists and both games were released not for making profit but both company need to fix [minimize] their loss. Therefore I think almost same numbers were made. J-Wing(VLab company) was free to sell VLab to individual customer like me [i.e., direct retail sales to customers]. On the other hand Athena (VBowling company) was much more strict [i.e., wholesale only – no direct retail sales to customers]. Taito (Space Invader company) and Bandai (Gundam Dimension War company) are big and much more strict than other 2 companies. So I guess they disposed their games like Atari E.T.” So it looks like it was a toss-up between VLab and VBowl, in terms of sales. In terms of quality – well, that’s a whole other issue!

There are 4 tiny bolts with hex heads located on the plate directly under the VB head unit. unscrew those and the VB will come off (don’t let it fall while you’re removing the bolts!). Then you’ll have full access to the lock.

I have a mint CIB VBowl. It is rare, but I would have to guess that VLab is much more rare. It came out just as the VB was being yanked from retailers in Japan, and most were returned to the distributor. Besides, it’s one crappy game, so it’s not like anyone said, “you really need to buy this.”

Holy cow – I owned Wildfire when it first came out! That’s how old I am!

It’s just a mailbox lock. Should be easy to replace the whole thing. Won’t be the original key but…

Do we know if those are in-store yet? I see a few on ebay at inflated prices.

Interesting stuff. I think that’s the first time I’ve seen the cost of the floor-mounted display – $900 total for the 2 parts.

And I love that they say that Duracell batteries “last 4 times longer than other batteries.” What batteries would those be – used batteries?

Very cool! In all my years of VB collecting, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that.

I have a thread with games and manuals for sale. See my posting. Thx.

Oooooooh!