Red Alarm & Wario Land store demo cartridges:

On the 15th of June 2004, Robin F. confirmed that our examination of the differences between the resale and demo versions of Red Alarm and Wario Land is true:
"We can see the only difference for Red Alarm is the last number on the chip. That's very common in chip-land, because it's most likely a date code. IC manufacturers print the manufacturing date on their chips so they can keep track of faulty batches etc. Number 9525 was probably the 25th batch produced in 1995, and 9527 was the 27th :-) This doesn't explain the Wario Land case, but I think it's possible that Nintendo get their chips from a number of IC makers. If you look at the chips used in different Nintendo systems (Game Boy, NES, SNES), you'll find many different logos on them."

This was double-verified by Romaric Larbi who says: "I own a Virtual Boy and I worked in an electronic repair workshop. The 4 numbers on a component significates: 1. The two first are the year of the manufacturing date; 2. The two last are the week of the manufacturing date.
For example : 9525 : year = 1995 the 25th week (so in June)"

On the 6th of September 2002, David Tucker confirmed that the Red Alarm & Wario Land ROMs of the demo and retail versions are the same:
"I went ahead and dumped them to disk, and they are identical to the retail versions except for the label on the front of the games."

On the 9th of October 2002, Jeremy Westerman confirmed how the Red Alarm & Wario Land demos were leaked from Nintendo in limited quantities:
"I was looking on your site and saw this page about the "demo" virtual boy games and figured I'd give a little back ground about them. They are the exact same as there retail versions, they were made and sent to retailers to "DEMO" the game in stores, after a month or so nintendo reps would come and take them back and put in another game or the retailers would send them back. That didn't always happen :-) anyway, so what does nintendo do with all these? along with all there not for resale games? (snes,gb, n64) Well sell them to there employees dirt cheap as refurbished. That probably how the vast majority have been released. I know this because I'm good friends with a nintendo employee, he tells me about the current sales and buys what I want. (I have to pay for it of course :) I have gotten demo n64 games and gameboy games that way. Hope that clears it up a bit."

Is it true that Virtual Boy demos are identical to the copies which were sold in the stores? This is a question which Virtual Boy collectors who own both the demo and resale versions of the Red Alarm and Wario Land game cartridges make at least once in their lifetime. Most people that have tested both versions conclude that they are actually the same game with different labels, but there are some of us who want to believe that they are different in some way.

All of us know that the only clear difference between the resale and demo cartridges is the sticker on the top part of the cartridge, but what many people might not have thought about is "what about the inside: is the circuitry the same in both versions?". Well, this question passed through my head one night not long ago, and after thinking about it thoroughly (About 10 seconds, I think ;-)), I decided to get working and open all four cartridges: Red Alarm and its demo, and Wario Land and its demo, and what I discovered amazed me enormously. Now I will make a brief description of my findings:

As we can see, there's a slight difference between both cartridges: a number is different on both cartridges. Why is this? Well, it is a good question, and I hope our readers can help us out :-)

As all of you can see, this inscription has nothing to do with the ones we saw on the Red Alarm carts nor on the Wario Land resale version, and as many of you might have noticed, the version of the chip used (TC5316200CFT) is different to the two traditionally used in the Virtual Boy cartridges (being TC5316200AFT the most similar, and the other traditionally used chip is TC538200AFT). Why is this? Another good question. Anyone want to have a guess and help us find out their meaning?

Daniel Palacios

Red Alarm DEMO cartridge:

Released in the USA, developed by Nintendo (T&E Soft) and brought out before the game was released, serial#: DIS-VUE-VREE-USA, genre: simulator/action/shooter, game has no backupcapacity;
Language accessibility: Perfect, everything is in English (it is afterall an American demo game).

Plays exactly like the original but without box and manual, and there a difference: the label on the cartridge says "Not For Resale - Demo Only" and "Not For Resale".

Virtual Boy Wario Land (aka: Wario Cruise) DEMO cartridge:

Released in the USA, developed by Nintendo and brought out before the game was released, serial#: DIS-VUE-VWCJ-USA, genre: platform/action, game has backupcapacity and saves scores;
Language accessibility: Perfect, everything is in English (it is afterall an American demo game).

Plays exactly like the original but without box and manual, and there is a difference: the label on the cartridge says "Not For Resale - Demo Only" and "Not For Resale".

PS: If you want to see a movie of sleepy Alan dropping his two demo carts on the floor, take a look hehe :-P