Original Post

Today we have a bunch of new Virtual Boy videos for you. In cooperation with Grooveraider, we are happy to present you with a total of 4 tradeshow videos from WCES 1995 and E3 1996, showing some fantastic, never before seen stuff.

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Nintendo Laser Montage (E3 1996)

Just before a live demonstration of the long awaited Nintendo 64 console on E3 1996. Actor/voiceover Charles Martinet kept the trade show attendees amused while portraying Mario’s nemesis Wario on an enormous C-shaped projection screen complete with a laser montage of Nintendo’s game line-up. You had to have been there to really experience Nintendo’s MASSIVE show booth.

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WCES 1995 VB Booth

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E3 1996 VB Booth

The Virtual Boy booth at E3 1996 with a lot of VB display with playable versions of Bound High and Dragon Hopper. This contains some seconds of Dragon Hopper footage!

Camera footage showing the Virtual Boy booth at WCES 1995. The video consists of three parts:

  1. Surrounding of the VB booth
  2. People waiting in front of the VB booth in order to be let into a darkened room where numerous VB Demos were shown on video
  3. Coming out of the Demo room into another area with many VB displays

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Virtual Boy Technical Demos (WCES 1995)

The fourth and last video shows 3:45 minutes of camera footage of the Virtual Boy demos shown on video on WCES 1995! You’ll see not only prototypes of Teleroboxer, Galactic Pinball, Red Alarm and Vertical Force, but also the F1 and Dolphin demos as well as the first ever moving images of the Mario and Starfox demos!

Bonus: Mario Demo (WCES 1995)
The complete Mario demo, taken from the above video of VB demos at WCES 1995.

Furthermore, Grooveraider sent us new and better scans of almost all press releases from WCES 1995 and E3 1995, a WCES 1995 VB brochure, as well as this picture of him with Gunpei Yokoi and his autographed copy of the E3 1995 programme. Yokoi signing it can be seen in this video we added earlier. Jealous? I certainly am.

A huge thank you goes out to Grooveraider for everything!

Grooveraider about the WCES 1995 VB demo video:

The camera work is pretty rough because Nintendo hosted the VB demos in a small dark enclosed mini-theatre filled with attendees. We stood in a pretty large line waiting to get our chance to see the VB games for the first-time in the U.S. Nintendo wasn’t allowing photography inside but I was able to pretend my camera wasn’t shooting by placing some dark wire tape over the recording light. So basically I went against their policy and I had to be very careful that the Reps didn’t see me recording – lol I didn’t have a compact camcorder like some people did back in 1995. My camera was a 1991 VHS RCA and looked like this: http://www.tomhirano.com/video/rca.jpg Yes, it was a pain in the ass to use – lol

So we finally made it inside and was given some shutter test goggles to hold over your eyes at the 6 big projection screens showing VB games and demos.

13 Replies

Man they are top, to finally see the dolphin demo with movement & Mario and Starfox and…. well top notch that totally made my day.

Krisse, is this the treat?

cos its a top one.

Yes, this is “it”. Glad you like it!

Since Grooveraider is still going through some other tapes he made, we might even see more in a few weeks. 😎

Very nice stuff, thanks for releasing this guys!

What an awesome look into what goes on at these trade shows. Really cool stuff guys!

WOW! Love that WCES ’95 video, we get to see the dolphin demo, StarFox, Mario, and even Goldeneye in action! In the Dragon Hopper video, does anyone know what’s following Dorin?
Brian

Might be that little sprite.

Mario Demo is amazing. Thanks , Grooveraider and KR155E!!

@Brian:

It’s a fairy. Looks like the dev team of Ocarina of Time weren’t the first one to think of a fairy that follows the player and gives tips (and goes on their nerves). πŸ˜€

That’s not Goldeneye, but what we call the “F1 Demo” or “Driving Demo”. I assume that Goldeneye screenshot was only a mock-up.

Mr Raider, you are fantastic.

Excellent videos.

VERY cool! It’s great to see these experiences preserved on video and shared for all of us to see! πŸ™‚

Those videos are awesome. Makes you think of what could have been!

WOOOOOOOOOWWW! I can’t tell you in words just how much I’ve wanted to see video footage of VB Mario Land! My mouth was hanging open as I watched the footage. :O

Seeing the other unseen stuff was incredible too! Too bad there wasn’t more footage of Dragon Hopper, but it was cool to see it at all. πŸ™‚

Thanks to Krisse for posting this and especially to Grooveraider for ignoring the “no recording” rules set by Nintendo resulting in the preservation of some truly awesome footage. πŸ™‚

Whoa… The dolphin demo is really impressive. It looks like more than 4 colors to me… or I am just seeing things. Perhaps the VB still has some tricks up its sleeves?

Also, that Starfox demo is really smooth. It just shows how much potential the VB still has. Thanks Grooveraider!

 

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