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. 🙂
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. 🙂
Wow, that’s like something I might day dream about; walking into a game store in 2010 and finding brand-spanking-new Virtual Boys for sale!
Ever since I missed out on buying a new VB at Toys R Us back in 1996 for $20 I’ve had this burning regret that’s been with me ever since. I don’t collect games any more but I would still love to make up for that mistake by purchasing a brand new Virtual Boy and that is why I still have not purchased a Virtual Boy: I won’t accept anything less than brand new. But then again, even though I say that I’m not exactly willing to part with $500+ for one. 😛
That article mentions that this forgotten shipment was nearly thrown out!! What a close call!
But even though this shipment got lucky, you think this is the only forgotten shipment of VB’s that was just sitting around to be discovered? Somehow I don’t think so. I’m very certain that somewhere out there was another shipment or two of however many Virtual Boys that were not lucky enough to be discovered and that have probably been disposed of by store owners that didn’t know what they had. 🙁
I do quite a bit of selling on eBay and have personally never had problems shipping to other parts of the world and I always offer as low a price as possible to international buyers. Some sellers on eBay are just incompetent.
…but would it really kill the owners of unreleased betas/full games to, y’know, maybe post a video or two of the game in action? Like maybe 30 seconds or so? I highly doubt posting a video of Dragon Hopper in action would destroy the game’s value, so what gives?
It is rather annoying when the Virtual Boy is referred to has a failure simply because it didn’t sell well. Ok, so it did give one a head-ache once in a while but I think a distinction needs to be made between sales failure and over-all hardware/software failure, because despite the very small software library the Virtual Boy still achieved–at least from a gamer’s point of view–the most important goal a game console can achieve: it was fun.
Now excuse me while I go back to work on a time machine that will take me back to late 1995 when Toys R Us was liquidating Virtual Boys for $30… sigh…
Sorry for the late response, that’s what happens when you travel near the speed of light for just a few minutes–entire months fly by.
Bummer that you didn’t win man. 🙁 The winning game is probably destined to become just another piece of shovel-ware for a certain white game console with motion controls.
jojobean wrote:
i think ups may have an option to come to your house and pick up/package something, in addition to shipping it. if not ups, i know there are other places that do. you could probably get someone on ebay to go with that if you set it up. but then again, we’re talking about a massive shipping bill. i dont have one of those things but i’m lucky enough to work in a building that has one. if i ever get an itch i can just go look at it and not have the need to buy one.
What kind of building could possibly still have one of these around? 😮 Are you by any chance working at a Toys R Us in 1995? ;P
DogP hit the nail on the head about shipping… unfortunately I’m in the same boat as KR155, can’t seem to find one of these stands locally.
I found a couple over time on eBay but the sellers wouldn’t even bother shipping them due to the weight, and I wasn’t about to drive across the country for it. As for value, that is really hard to pin down… I personally would value a VB display that is in excellent condition for about $600.
NamelessPlayer wrote:
I can’t believe I didn’t notice that earlier! We could always use more sound from all these unreleased games; screenshots tell a good deal about what it looks like, but show us nothing about how it all sounds.
(If only whoever owned a prototype of you-know-what would post a video like this on YouTube…)
Unfortunately, if what I heard about the owner is true then it’s unlikely we’ll see anything at all unless the game changes owners. And apparently, even that isn’t likely to happen sooo….. 🙁
Also, the video is quite flickery; it could be the camera making it more exaggerated, but that flicker is probably why people get headaches from playing the VB too long.
I think it also has a bit to do with the frame rate the camera is recording at. I know for sure when I played that VB that it doesn’t appear that flickery to me; it actually looks seamless to my eyes.
Hey guys, how about a Bound High video with sound? Now I’m pretty sure that’s a first since it was posted about 3 days back:
My conversation with the owner of this copy of Bound High was very interesting to say the least, however, I would like to respect his request to keep the conversation private.
Ha ha, Nameless… you’re obsession with Dragon Hopper is amusing at times. You’re not alone however, I too would love to play it. Dragon Hopper is rather special since, I forgot where it was exactly that I read this but, an article I read somewhere stated that the game was practically finished and even had it’s cover art and box done as well–it was just never mass-printed.
So its cool to know that the game isn’t just some partially finished proto-type, it’s complete and out there… somewhere… over the rainbow… 😮
Yes indeed, this is the first time I’ve seen it and I thought it was simply awesome. Now if someone would make a vid like this for Dragon Hopper…. hmm. 😛
Trev wrote:
Are we sure anyone even owns these proto-types we talk about? I’ve been doing a lot of searching on the internet and have yet to run across anything indicating that somebody owns one of the highly desired games such as Bound High, Zero Racers, etc.
For all we know they are either tucked away somewhere in Nintendo’s secret archives or were simply lost in time.
They are definately out there, there are a few people on this site that have the bound high source code
Well now that is definitely pretty cool… but something in a more playable form would be even better. 😐
Are we sure anyone even owns these proto-types we talk about? I’ve been doing a lot of searching on the internet and have yet to run across anything indicating that somebody owns one of the highly desired games such as Bound High, Zero Racers, etc.
For all we know they are either tucked away somewhere in Nintendo’s secret archives or were simply lost in time.
Ptooie. Unfortunately I think DogP is right, so that leaves me back at square one.
I’m starting to think I should assemble a small special ops swat team or something and silently infiltritate Nintendo’s archives to retrieve the super rare protos most likely stored there, because somehow I’m sure even if I offered Nintendo 10K for VB Mario Land they would still send me out the door. :[
Maybe we would even stumble across the frozen brain of the real Mario creator while searching.
Wow, thanks for the insight! I’ve always wanted to know what it was like to be an early adopter of the system, since, due to being about 10 and having almost no money, I was not able to buy the system upon launch.
I did experience the crash however. I was at my local Toys ‘R’ Us one day and saw them selling their entire Virtual Boy stock for about $25.
I really wanted one and I returned a week later with money for a VB and a couple games, but, alas, everything was gone. The feeling I had upon seeing everything gone absolutely sucked because I knew that was it, there won’t be any more VB’s or games at those prices.
It’s moments in life like these that make me wish I could go back in time. I mean, wow, just try and get a brand new VB these days for less than $200! Or sealed copies of games like Wario Land and Jack Bros. for $10 for that matter!
I just want to go back in time, bring a few K’s, and buy up their entire inventory of VB’s and games…. *sigh* …oh well. One can dream.. 🙁
Well, that’s what friends are for y’know? Without them, would anything break?
Seriously, a few days back a friend of mine dropped my photo camera. Luckily I was still holding it onto the wrist-strap attached to it or my friend would be a few hundred dollars poorer.
As for my retro stuff, I just don’t let anyone touch em’ period. I know I’m a bit of a scrooge in that way but my friends have proven in the past that their hands are better off not touching my stuff.
