Unfortunately I can’t keep the Virtual Boy out assembled and everything, it has to be put away most of the time. I use a generic carry bag with a lot of internal space. Before I just left bags of GB cartridges in there, now I put my two VB headsets there, along with my stand, games, AC adapter and AC tap/battery packs. It’s a good fit, though the headsets sit on top of each other in a stack.
First time I ever heard of Virtual Boy was in Wario Ware Inc. for GBA, the microgame that’s based on Mario Clash. Then years later I saw AVGN’s review of the Virtual Boy. It was entertaining, but didn’t take the criticisms seriously.
During 2013, a friend of mine wanted to do some trading, I had some low end Sega Saturn stuff I didn’t want anymore, he was big into Saturn. He had a broken Virtual Boy with intact stand, controller, AC tap and Mario’s Tennis along with some other stuff. I accepted the VB stuff. In the end, I never got that Virtual Boy system working, but the system definitely had me wanting more out of it. I got a refurbished VB off someone on NintendoAge, but it wasn’t a permanent fix. After much trial and error I have that unit working 99%, sometimes the left display gets errors on overly bright screens. Right one seems ever so slightly dim. I also bought a 3rd VB system that is definitely in need of repair, but haven’t had time to do anything with it yet.
Thanks to Planet VB I have been able to try more Virtual Boy games, it really is a fun system. It could use more games, but at least there’s a homebrew scene going on. I can’t say I’ve ever played a system as strange and unique as the Virtual Boy. The name is awesome too.
You’re banned for not being an eMac G4. (yes it’s a real model of iMac, look it up)
With Nintendo being so perfect, what with saving the industry and inventing the video game, there needs to be one Nintendo console for everyone to gather around to hate. Unfortunately, that console is the VB. Misinformation has to be spread in order to complete the hate circle.
This is all true, I read about it on the internet.
Yeah those VB carts have to be tested.
I’d die and go to heaven from happiness if a playable Starfox VX proto surfaced.
I see three VB carts in the pile, two are Mario’s Tennis and Mario Clash. I wonder what the 3rd one is.
The only delicate part of the stand is the medallion. The lock and the bottom part of the VB are very solid, they won’t break.
Why can’t you just squeeze the lock open, take the VB off and put the new one on the stand? You don’t have to do any unscrewing of any sort.
In reality, video games are not a good investment. Take NES for example, only about 25 – 30 games are actually worth a lot of money (over $100). That leaves over 600 worthless games, not counting unlicensed titles. Most systems are like this, the majority of games are worth less than $30 each.
SNES is one of the only exceptions to this rule, a lot of titles cost over $100 now, more than NES. That’s simply due to hype though.
Pokemon is indeed repetitive and overrated, but it sold incredibly well and spiked Game Boy hardware sales. Sales figures posted on NeoGAF indicate the Game Boy had its best selling year in 1998, when Pokemon Red and Blue came out, that was 9 years after Game Boy was released.
It makes sense therefore that Pokemon Red would be a consistent request for a VB game. There’s also irony there, Pokemon Red on a red game system.
The two stamped digits refer to the manufacturing facility the cartridge was made at.
As far as revisions go, it is important to note the product code on the front of the game label. For Virtual Boy, a product code looks like this:
VUE-XX-USA
If USA (or JPN etc) is followed by a -1, then it’s probably revision 1.1. -2 is 1.2 and so on. There are some small exceptions to this rule. For example, the gold Ocarina of Time (N64) product code is NUS-CZGE-USA, where as the regular version is NUS-CZLE-USA. Technically therefore, they are completely separate games, according to Nintendo.
Well, for me at least, I can get eyestrain from a calibrated VB if I’m already tired with sore eyes… Kind of a no brainer there. I can only really play VB if I’m well rested.
Sometimes in pitch black, in a VB game with a lot of black, I get that distortion you normally get from trying to see in the dark, heh. Feels weird.
I didn’t outright say the red and black colors were bad, but back in 1995, color was a big deal. Nobody wanted to play something with only red for a color, that sounds more outdated than the Game Boy.
On a real VB with everything set up correctly, the red and black doesn’t hurt my eyes, it’s pretty easy to play for a long time. As someone else noted, I love the sharpness of the LED graphics, looks leagues ahead of the common LCDs of the time. LED was absolutely the way to go, but red really killed the Virtual Boy.
Pros:
• Fun games, I’ve tried several and they’re all good. Wario Land and Bound High are very high quality and fun. Red Alarm makes some very good use of the VB hardware.
• The controller. It’s very comfy and has two D-pads, the only console I know of with a feature like that. I wish the N64 did that, or maybe use two analog sticks.
• The 3D! If the VB only did one thing right, it was the 3D. After seeing the 3D on a fully working VB, I am thoroughly impressed. It’s a 1995 console and its 3D is deeper and easier to see than even the 3DS. The 3D really and truly works. Maybe it should have been called 3D Boy. Although you could say stereoscopic 3D is best for polygons, I think it also worked great on sprite-based graphics. Wario Land is a really cool game to look at.
• The name, Virtual Boy. I know I said 3D Boy is more appropriate, but man do I ever love the Virtual Boy name. I love saying it, it sounds cool, it represents an unexplored aspect of Nintendo. People only remember Game Boy, Virtual Boy is seen as a failure. What if there were more “Boy” consoles from Nintendo? How about, err, Touch Boy? (DS) …. Or maybe not haha. Still, Virtual Boy is a kick ass name, it’s a great extension of Game Boy.
Cons:
• The shitty, fucking, AWFUL ribbon cables. Nintendo should be ashamed.
• The severe lack of games. It really needed more games.
• Red and black. For all intents and purposes, the red wasn’t really the best idea.
• The rarity of the system.
• The stand. If it weren’t for the medallion, it would get a good stand.
Let them hate, it’s all they have.
Virtual Boy is damned awesome, it has some genuinely fun games, the entire hardware package is delightfully weird and the 3D effect truly does work, better than even the 3DS I’d say.

Didn’t I say to check for that earlier?
Same here, table. I use it differently though. I lean the VB back on its stand, so I can sort of look down into it. This is way easier than trying to hunch over and look into the VB horizontally. Basically, you look at the faint illustration of the girl playing VB on the PVB page, you just rotate the VB forward so it is looking up.

Check to make sure you haven’t accidentally left a dust cap in the slot.
The VB console is too difficult to take apart for home users. That would also void your warranty. Besides, even if the lenses were swappable, the LEDs were still red.
The single best option would have been a Virtual Boy Color system (like GBC) by 1998 or 1999. Maybe by then green and blue LEDs would be cheap enough for a game console. Wouldn’t it be neat if original VB games could run in green and black or blue and black on the VBC?
Maybe if the VB wasn’t so poorly received, we’d all be playing the Nintendo Vision VR system by now.
Yep, I’ve tried the VB without the lenses, it’s really hard to play. The mirrors move so fast, the air keeps hitting my eyes and dries them out, making it difficult to continue looking for any significant length of time. It’s not really worth it, the red lenses are pretty much required. Without them, the graphics are a lot dimmer looking, it’s hard to see anything. The red lenses basically finish off the optical illusion (oscillating mirrors projecting a solid image).