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.”
Many years ago, someone claimed to know the editor of a gaming magazine who supposedly got a copy of DH in exchange for featuring another videogame on the cover of the magazine. But efforts to follow up were met with a lot of stonewalling, so I was dubious of the claim.
Thanks to Splain for restoring my faith in people. He inquired about the price, sent Paypal quickly, and let me know when the package arrived. Kudos to him!
