As someone who bought the Virtual Boy at launch, and the only one of my friends who was interested in it at the time, I can tell you a few things that would have helped.

1. It should have launched at $99.99. I know they lowered the price later, but then it was too late. If it came out at $99.99 it would have gotten a lot more hype.

2. It needed better games at launch. There wasn’t much to choose from and it didn’t have a killer app. If they had delayed it maybe by a few months and had Wario Land ready as a pack in, that surely would have helped.

3. Needed more coverage in gaming mags. Even Nintendo Power didn’t really have much on the VB. It only dedicated a measly few pages to the system after launch.

These points still may have not made the VB a success, but maybe on launch day I wouldn’t have been the only person at Software Etc. in the mall buying a system.

Yes, both of them have the entry form attached. But after looking I see that I must have cut out the Virtual Boy logo on the first one for some reason. The second one is fully in tact. I also found a Virtual Boy coupon and another brochure while searching for the 3D Sweepstakes one. I took a picture of what I found.

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I actually have one or two of these 3D Must See TV brochures in a box of Nintendo brochures that I had collected back in the day. I had no idea that they had any value to them. I just collected them because I was weird and the only one of my friends who was into Virtual Boy at the time.

I first heard about VB in the pages of Nintendo Power when it was codenamed VR32. I counted the days to its release, saving up my money and reading everything I could about it. I was there on launch day to buy one from Software Etc. for $170.

I was excited to bring it home, but I could tell that it wasn’t going to be a great seller since the store I bought it from was empty. No one was at the store to buy a VB and the clerk said I was the first one to buy one that day (and I arrived in the late afternoon). Still, I didn’t care and have enjoyed it ever since!

It’s amazing how homebrew on the VB has really blown up these last few years. I think I’ve used my VB more these last two years than I did in 1995 and 96.

I first heard about the “VR32” in the pages of Nintendo Power — and being a huge Nintendo fan, I was definitely interested in purchasing one. I mean, what kid wouldn’t want his own virtual reality headset?

When Nintendo Power unveiled the first screen shots of VB games in one of their issues, I was a little disappointed and almost dismissed the idea of getting one. Then I got the issue of Nintendo Power that had VB on the cover and saw that the screen shots were much improved. That’s when I decided to take the chance and buy one.

I bought my VB from Software Etc. on launch day. I was apparently the only one interested in buying one because no one else was in the store and the clerk said no one had purchased one yet. I brought it home, put the 6 batteries that came with the system in the controller and started playing Mario’s Tennis.

I was disappointed at first because I was kind of expecting full VR immersion instead of “just” 3D. Over the coming weeks I learned to appreciate that the system was different than anything else I had and my disappointment quickly waned.

Over the coming months I purchased more VB games, some new like Wario Land and 3D Tetris, but most of them used. Blockbuster quickly got rid of their VB games and they were a haven for scoring great deals. I even got Jack Bros. from my local Blockbuster for around $10 with the box and manual in mint condition. I wonder if anyone ever even rented VB games because they were always in stock there.

For about 5 months I was the only one of my friends to own a VB until Blockbuster started getting rid of them. I was a little annoyed that I had spent $170 on a system that my friends were able to pick up for only $30 5 months later. And it REALLY annoyed me that they also got a free charger and cool briefcase with it.

About a year after VB came out it was apparent that the system was a failure. I had already purchased most of the games that were released in the U.S. except for Waterworld, Golf, and Nester’s Funky Bowling (I ended up getting those a few years later on eBay).

Since then I’ve always had a fascination with Virtual Boy. It’s strange because it’s the only Nintendo system that was a failure, it didn’t have an amazing library of games, and it gave my friends headaches. But there’s just something about it that I’ve always been drawn to… and probably always will be.

I can vouch for TheForce81. I sent him my broken VB display a few weeks ago and he sent them back fixed to perfection. The price was very fair and totally worth it because now I’ve got a working VB with no glitchy display problems.

I used to have absolutely NO display in the left eye of my VB, but the oven trick was able to fix that, which I tried just the other day! I must thank DogP for his tutorial! Although the oven trick wasn’t perfect, I implemented my own little trick in addition to the oven trick that seemed to do the job…

See, after I tried the oven trick, the VB displays in each eye still flickered a little bit. Since I don’t have any soldering experience, I tried using tiny metal binder clips that you can buy at Staples or Office Depot and clipped the ends of the ribbon cables to the PCB and then closed up the VB with the clips still inside. The flickering is gone and my VB plays perfectly. I know it’s not an ideal solution, but as long as you don’t seriously bang the VB around, the clips should hold as those things are pretty strong. If they do happen to shake loose, I can just open up the VB and re-clip them as I replaced the VB game screws with standard ones.

You can find the clips here:
http://www.staples.com/office/supplies/p1_Staples-Black-Metal-Binder-Clips-Bulk-Pack_197593_Business_Supplies_10051_SEARCH

I think it’s been mentioned in this forum before, but maybe we could all set up some kind of PayPal account and anyone interested in acquiring some rare VB games for dumping could contribute. If every person gave 5 or 10 dollars, eventually we could buy a game like Space Invaders, someone would dump it and then that same person could resell it on eBay and refund some of the money back to the people who contributed it. It would be like an investment!

I’m a few days late, but I sent my order in just now. Hopefully I’ll be able to get the next batch!

Exciting stuff. Let’s hope the VB homebrew scene explodes after this. 🙂

I must have been the only one who actually anticipated the release of VB and bought it on launch day.

I remember constantly reading about it in Nintendo Power. I was a huge Nintendo fan, so I knew I had to buy it. With the Ultra 64 having been delayed a year, I used the money I had been saving for Ultra 64 to buy VB.

I remember going to Electronics Boutique on VB’s launch day and being the only one there to buy one. I was expecting VB to be this amazing, immersive, virtual experience and was slightly disappointed when I brought it home and found the 3D effects to be not nearly as awesome as they had been in my imagination. But as I played through Mario’s Tennis, I realized that despite the fact that the 3D effect weren’t like virtual reality, they were still pretty cool.

My launch unit stopped working (it had that problem where one eye wasn’t displaying properly) and have since had to buy 2 more Virtual Boy units. Hopefully this one won’t break.

Me, definitely.

I’ve been an unregistered lurker of Planet VB for years. Finally with all this talk about the Flashboy, I just had to come out of the woodwork and register to post my excitement! This is the most amazing news to come to the VB scene ever! I’m totally excited and can’t wait until orders are made available. I’ll definitely be waiting in line.

I’ve got a couple of VL Baseball carts laying around, so I’d be happy to send one over rather than having KR155E sacrifice one from his stock.