Virtual-Boy.Net 2003 Updates

Ahh the world of the Virtual Boy, what a place it would be had it not succumb to the scrupulous powers that stole its fame and fortune. Of course it lives on in the hearts of all us fans, but most people today simply cock their head to the side and go "Whuh?" when you mention the name. Even phone calls I made to Nintendo Australia left the poor staff confused as hell. We all know now what went wrong by looking at the past; my thoughts are, what would've happened had it succeeded? Could a cultural revolution in the video game industry been heralded by our black and red friend?

Glazing at Nintendo's controllers since (N64 and Gamecube) it's not hard to see at least the controller had a strong influence, using prongs and shoulder buttons and, especially compared to the GC's, the control pads right under where the thumb lies.

More importantly though, imagine our gaming world if Sony and Sega had raised their heads and followed through to create their own versions and begin a new wave of gaming technology. Sony's Glasstron television display eyeglasses cast a 52" field of vision...think if this capability was mated to a videogame processing unit roughly the size of a Game Boy AdvanceSP; ultimate gaming luxury. Lightweight easily wearable head mounted large colour display, video game delight.

Or what if Nintendo had refined the technology (and the head mounted issue) and made it for use with the GC as apposed to using Game Boy Advances. Multiplayer action where only you see what you're doing, noone else catching you as unaware again.

There are so many possibilities of things that couldve occured. Alas old red friend, we won't know for sure just yet. Maybe one day the concept will spark in the mind of some young developer in a firm, and we'll see a 2nd wave. Lets just hope we get a Castlevania out of it this time :)

Got NGC Magazine issue #88 in today and have to say they've totally redeemed themselves by putting Mario Clash of Virtual Boy fame in the History of Mario, well that and they published a letter of mine in issue #86 :-) Here's a SCAN. Oops still need to upload page, ftp not working, remind me to do so later.

Finally went to see the last Matrix movie on a bday yesterday, overall great movie! Today I got some amazing copies of the Q&A manual included with Japanese demo units and I've taken the liberty of scanning & uploading them for you all. So if you got one of those rare display units or a Japanese VB, this is the icing on the cake. Find them in the articles section.

The latest F-Zero: Legend of the Falcom news from Japan states that something new has been added to the GameBoy Advance update to the classic racer. From what we can tell it's dedicated mode to introduce players to the series with maximum ease or speed, mysteriously this new mode is called Zero Racers Mode. With all the winks Nintendo has given to the VB as of late, I wouldn't be surprised that this is something derived from the tentative name of the VB's spinoff title Zero Racers, which you may remember was later called G-Zero. Whether this mode actually defies gravity is yet to be seen. More as it's unveiled.

The Flame Red GameCube from Bandai goes on sale on November 27th in Japan, which includes a demo disc of Mobile Suit Gundam. Thanks Bandai!

Received a Super Mario Bros. 3 for GameBoy Advance promotional email from Nintendo of American today. They are doing a retro knowledge test to see what us fans know about Mario Bros. Especially the first question is interesting: "Mario was all red (and black) in which two Virtual Boy games (1995)? Mario Tennis and Mario _____". Gee that's a very tough question for anyone owning a VB Mr. Nintendo Sir. :-P Well at least their acknowledging the games as excellent in a way, as the first GBA Mario Clash mini-games showing earlier this year did too.
On another note: I don't know what's going on, but it's actually snowing outside, whatever happened to autumn?

Did you know? There is a Nintendo museum at the Nintendo office in Shizuoka (about 100 kilometres from Tokyo near Mt Fuji) that has all the Nintendo games including the Virtual Boy games and demos on display. They charge 2000 Yen admission *nearly 20 Bucks* and you can't take photos! What a rip off. Now if those demos happen to be unreleased "demos" that'd be very interesting to go and check out when in Japan.

We're having a bit of a Space Invaders revival lately, so here's a new code for the game send in by Neil.
"Got a SI code for you -- I don't think it's on your site (but maybe it is). To select a level in SI PART 2 (works in 2D or 3D mode): while holding SELECT + LEFT REAR BUTTON, press A.
Don't credit me. I had accidently discovered it when I first got the game, then promptly forgot how to do it. A friend just got the game, and I mentioned it to him, and he figured it out."

I noticed the commemoration 25th anniversary of Space Invader edition in Japan earlier, but had no idea 3D Space Invaders would be included *applause for Taito*

We need to move Virtual-Boy.Net over to a brand new server, which we'll start doing during the weekend. Apologies for the possible downtime. Being a half a gigabyte website this might take a while, but we'll return after a virtually short time.

Nintendo is thinking up some original games as well, though. One interesting idea involves the game ordering you to play while, for example, squatting. It relies on the other player who can push a button squatting, while you play the game in order to advance.

I hope the previous mentioned game idea won't keep Nintendo from making their GameBoy Advance games into versus multiplayer games on the GameCube. I'd like to see Mario & Luigi battle it out in virtual 3D, even if it's just for a few seconds. Let's hope we can verify this before the 24th of October. Now playing: Mario Clash level 20.

A brief clarification and upload - September 03 2003 @ 11:55 PM GMT+1 ~ Ferry

Great update Iko Da. While I update offline content, Pete will "guide" us soon.
For now readers mail will be brief, along with an article update. Here it goes: ...

"another vb site said there will be vb2 in 2004 soon is it true?"

Sorry Frederik, as much as we'd like to, there will be no VB2 in a long time, "the innovative and unique software & hardware" that was to be released in the spring of 2004 is nothing more than a Donkey Konga music game with Nintendo GameCube Conga Drum. As said by Iwata last month. Saturu Iwata revealed that Nintendo plans to announce a successor to its current generation of consoles next spring in Japan. So expect the GCN2 (code named NES5) and the GBA2 to be unveiled for the first time at E3 2004. Of course being a long time BigN fan I knew that everything they announce, they announce saying it's unique and innovative. It's hard to sell something saying it's dull and copied. You'd have to be very misguided to think Ninty would release the next VB this soon when the failure is still fresh the media's memory. Sadly, bad hype would kill the system before it would even be released. But VR and other 3D applications are making advances everywhere, so who knows what the future will bring.

While we're on the subject of linkage. Especially for reviews, David M. has the 100th English language Virtual Boy page! It comes highly recommended, you can find it here:
www.videogamecritic.net

I've also added 2 new article scans of the first issue of N64 Magazine and one of the latest issues of NGC Magazine (same publisher, newer system). Although the last article blurts out the same preconceptions we're used to in the media, which is sad because it's my favorite magazine in the world (see better times). I actually send them a letter about it. The history of Wario is still a good read though.

Speaking of Europe Ferry, The awesome Game Convention that took place in Germany over the last few days had the boys from Planet Virtual Boy showing off the retro red beast! From a combined booth of Lik-Sang and Dreamcast-Petition.com the guys from Planet VB had an actual Virtual Boy unit for the public to use. You can find pictures and a few articles over here at Lik-Sang.com. Planet Virtual Boy also have a huge pictures section which can be found here.

Phew, this European summer heatwave sure is kicking in full gear! If you don't see me, you'll find me at the beach with the gang. A combination of my recent updates and vacation time caused both my VB email addresses to overstep their quotas. So if your email isn't getting through, please try again later. I don't know what's going on with you people though? Are you all crazy? Virtual Boy is supposed to be an underdog, you're not supposed to send us a 100 emails in one week! So if our replies seem brief, don't take that to mean we don't appreciate it, we do very much but things are a bit crazy right now :) And did I mention I have yet to add about 500 images to the site. Plus Pete is designing some new backgrounds, so I'll have to replace them on almost 500 pages, wheee fun :( Luckily the tooltime projects I'm planning to do with IkaDa bring a big grin to my face :D

The eagerly awaited Make Your Own Virtual Boy Eyeshade Holder guide from Shamit has arrived, and is sure to help out a lot of virtual gamers in distress about their eyeshade holder. Which seems to go missing often if you bought a second hand VB. I can't really add much more to this update, but to say you'll just have to read these great new guides. There'll be a few more following this month by your trusty v-b.net team. In closing we have a VB fan showing off his VB, ace collection Shamit!

Last Thursday at a press conference held in Tokyo (Japan) Nintendo among other announcements that morning revealed that a GameCube version of "Made in Wario" was in development, known as "Wario Ware: Mega Microgame$" in the USA or "Wario Ware: Minigame Mania in Europe & Australia". The quirky title was an instant hit on the GameBoy Advance, due to its fast and furious gameplay and simple controls. Selling 417,240+ games in Japan alone with worldwide sales nearing the one million!

Virtual Boy fans worldwide thanked Nintendo for including a Mario Clash mini-game (live footage here soon)! Which looked like a faithful recreation of the VB screen, monochrome red and all. In the 3 second mini-game (unless you hit the Goomba directly) Mario is at the far end of the screen, and has to throw a shell and hit the Goomba at the near end of the screen. If he misses, the shell comes flying at you, and the 3D effect is pretty good, for a 2D screen.

With a GameCube version coming this October to Japan, and hopefully released worldwide by Christmas 2003. Now, Virtual Boy fans worldwide, are awaiting anxiously to see (if any) how many Virtual Boy game bits Nintendo's programmers will recreate for play on the bigscreen version of Wario's company. Here's to hoping the power of the Cube will be put to good use!

A very readable update, even if you're cross-eyed! - July 31, 2003 @ 1:00 PM GMT+1 ~ Ferry

If you're interested in how Europe experienced the Virtual Boy's existence from 1994 & 1995 to 1996. Then here's your chance to read up on all these 60 interesting pages. Both long & short articles are among them. One article even refers to Nintendo having promised classic franchises such as Metroid with Samus to appear on the Virtual Boy later on in 1995! Look for Nintendo Magazine System in the Articles section, enjoy!

Here's a nice experiment for you to try out. Virtual Boy in-game screenshots & video can't capture the 3D effect the VB gives the player. And the VB pulls this 3D effect off by showing a slighty different image on each of the two screens the player views, which your brain processes into one 3D screen. So why not throw two images that are a tiny bit different from eachother, right next to eachother, and stare at them until you go cross-eyed! Match up the red dots under the images. Then gradually relax your eyes until your focus sharpens on the central image... and then you get the VB 3D effect! Have fun.

New unreleased in-game screenshots! - July 30, 2003 @ 11:55 PM GMT+1 ~ Ferry

As vague as these two new Bound High screenshots may be, as amazing these six new Zero Racer images are.
As blurry as the top two and bottom screenshots are, as amazing as the new VB Mario Land information is.
As mysterious as the new V1 Racer screenshot is at the bottom, as enigmatical it's new information becomes.

Holy cow was that boring! I just spend hours upon hours reading through old Nintendo magazines for the past few days, hoping to find some new Virtual Boy articles. These were magazines I bought years ago, but didn't get to me until recently. Well, I have to say it was both boring and exciting reading through mags from 1994 to 1996. And in the end I found SIXTY pages! 60 pages about Virtual Boy! I prefer to scan them at 300dpi, so that took a while to finish. Before I schrink them to their regular readable size, this gives me the chance to get some high quality screenshots cut out of them. If you're still reading this you're probably on to me why I'm so excited... YES indeed I found a whole bunch of new unreleased game screenshots!! Their from the following games: Bound High. V1 Racer. VB Mario Land. Zero Racers. But what's this? Oh... uh-oh! Oh jeez... I'm tired. I... I can't keep my eyes open. Guess you'll have to check back tomorrow if you want to see these AMAZING new images. Bye.

hope this gets through as i am glad to help out a fellow gamer.
had to dig through a few issues b4 i found it.

Mr. Channing was so kind to scan me the January 2002 issue of Computer & VideoGames Magazine, which featured a page about Nintendo's Virtual Boy. It just so happens we got linked up in the article of this famous UK based magazine! Read for yourself by clicking: HERE! ^_^

I've scanned the two pages that Mr. Getraint mentioned in your last update.
Both pages came from Tips and Tricks, June 2003, No. 100.

That's mighty kind of you Mr. Brown, it's pretty fun to see all this recent VB activity in the media. You can find the two scans: #1 here and #2 here.

I have a question. Does the time limit you have to score a jackpot decrease each time you score a jackpot on Colony?

I hope someone can answer this Galactic Pinball question, as I wouldn't know myself. And while we're on the subject , we got a handful new Highscores in. The competition is already beating eachother here and there on the tables, the heat is on, so keep 'em coming those highscores! People are even sending in screenshots of their accomplishments, which just has me gazing at them with open eyes. I'll put them up on the scores list page sometime for bragging rights :)

What on earth is that wierd noise on the Eyes only page? It's so cool!!!
Virtual Boy Rocks!

Hahaha, yeah uhm about that.... that's me saying "VB ON!!" in a Zeus voice :)
I thought no one would ever ask me that question. Oh and yeh VB does rock!!

NEW old Gunpei Yokoi interview, part 2! - July 25, 2003 @ 08:00 PM GMT+1 ~ Ferry

A big thanks to Yasu for translating the second page after the first page of the 1995 interview with Gunpei Yokoi. This is a very special interview and I'm sure our readers will love it. ^_^ I really enjoyed reading how Mr. Yokoi thought about the Virtual Boy, he had many fun ideas, and a great sense of humour. And at the end of the interview he reveals a secret!

I believed that this will be very popular! But I thought that everybody say 'Is this not color ?'
I understood that everybody said that. I had agreed myself.

Seeing object using 3D is mixing right eye and left eye in brain. If we use color, it must
unite color. Monochrome is easy for 3D view. I have a question. Does a game need color?
If go stone (Go is a Japanese board game. It uses a white and black stone.) and reversi stone have a color,
does go become more fun?

We can say the same thing for video-game. If we paint color, game becomes showy, it is an advantage.
But after starting a game, the color is not participating.

With GameBoy, I was told 'Monochrome' (laugh). I played Famicom game without color, I experimented to feel
something else. Fun of game is not view. Fun of game is something else.
This time Virtual Boy, I experienced GameBoy, I believe that monochrome can make enough funny game.

Hardware design after many complications.

First, I ordered to my subordinates about hardware design.
'make display like sunglasses (laugh).'
Display to head, controller and main body connect using cable. First time, subordinates did hard,
but it is impossibility (laugh). Making like light weight goggle is possible, I thought tolerable.
But There is a strong problem radio wave interference. Virtual Boy uses fast CPU, so it must use
thick cable, otherwise radio wave fly out from body. So, main body connects to display,
what does survive in controller side? 'only battery (laugh).' I designed in first time, like glasses,
we can wear easily. but we must bind to head. But, so, it is danger for children occur accident,
So, I changed style to peep easily. I avoid very big machine like virtual reality machine.
People peeping binoculars is cool. I aimed that image.

It can express every game.

Virtual Boy is different from usual promotion process of game. Changing from 8bit to 16bit, fun of game
doesn't become twice. Changing is only showy view. In the future, the evolution of game will stop.
Virtual Boy is a different concept from beautiful view, and it realizes game ideas from the beginning again.
If we make Mario's tennis to other hardware, everybody will say 'why now?' but Virtual Boy shows new.

Some people say 'Virtual Boy has 1 red color only. Is it hard to show letter?' No problem.
Red color on red color, uses 3D depth. If you see 'Mario Clash', you can understand.
So, Virtual Boy has a enough potential for genre of RPG.
We have schedule to sell VS cable for VS game. But, basically, we play game only 1player.
VS-mode is fun, but 1player mode is very tedious, that game is crime for customer.
Now, we are making funny game for VS-mode. We sell it on Autumn.
We sell VS-cable with VS-game same time.

PROFILE

Developing section leader.
He makes Ultra-Hand first,
Gameboy etc, many hit products.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Red-letters)
I was thinking to make light weight like sunglass.

Shamit tells us his guide will be ready in a week, so all you folks without eyeshades(holder) check back for the guide on how to make one from scratch yourself, soon! At request I've added a Highscores list for Galactic Pinball. My own scores and those of a friend of mine, are really terrible, and were taken from an old 1997 Galactic Pinball cartridge. But we're still in the list because obviously people can't do any better than us *wink wink nudge nudge* hehe. So prove us wrong by sending us your best scores! I've contemplated adding top 5's of other VB games, but it doesn't seem worthwhile. Aside from the Tetris games, Galactic Pinball is the easiest to just pick up and play for a few minutes for top scoring. So we'll stick with Pinball for now, have fun.

Also, Mr. Getraint emailed us the following new codes for Red Alarm & Jack Bros., which he says came from his 100th issue of Tips & Tricks, their pretty awesome cheats too! Read what he has to say:

Red Alarm Secret Cheat Code! Virtual Boy cheats are few and far between; with only 14 games released for the system in the U.S., we never really got a chance to find many codes. One of the best Virtual Boy games, Red Alarm, has a very cool cheat code which has been kept secret for eight years! We actually found this cheat in the September 22, 1995 issue of Dengeki Super Famicom, the only Japanese video-game magazine with the guts to offer its readers a bi-weekly Virtual Boy column during the system's all-too-brief lifespan. We're very surprised that nobody else seems to have noticed it before! At the Red Alarm title screen---the one that says "Start" and "Option"---repeatedly press the SELECT button as fast as you can. If you can tap SELECT 60 times before the title screen disappears, you'll hear a special sound effect to confirm that the cheat is in place. Once you've done this, start a game, then press L + R +SELECT + A simultaneously at any time. A secret cheat menu will appear, allowing you to activate an Invincebility option ("Special"), warp to any stage or listen to any of the game's music tracks!

Jack Bros. View Map Code! Another quick Virtual Boy cheat, this time courtesy of Jay Oster: Press START to pause Jack Bros., then press Up, Left, Down, Right to complete the map in the corner of the screen. To disable this code, press Up, Right, Down, Left.

To close off today I'd like you to take a look below. The 2 "incomplete" images you can see on the page of the unreleased VB game V1 Racer, merge perfectly! Thanks to Dean this pretty conclusively verifies it's a second V1 Racer (Virtual Racer) screenshot:

The World's First Video Game
The Video Game Hall Of Fame
Let's Play Spacewar!
Let's Play Pong!
The Rise And Fall Of Atari
Let's Play Nintendo!
Mr. Gameboy

I want to shed particular attention to the column "Mr. Gameboy". These paragraphs were reprinted from that segment, as put together by the Bathroom Readers Institute:

Needless to say, (Gunpei) Yokoi made Nintendo a lot of money over the years. What did he have to show for it? Not much - in 1995 his Virtual Boy, an addition to the Game Boy product line that was kind of like a 3D View-Master - bombed. The red LED display gave so many players headaches that when the product was released in the United States it came with a warning label. One reviewer called it a "Virtual Dog."

Nintendo lost a lot of money on the Virtual Boy, and (Hiroshi) Yamauchi apparently decided to humiliate Yokoi publicly by making him demonstrate the game system at the company's annual Shoshinkai trade show, even though it was all but dead. "This was his punishment, the Japanese corporate version of Dante's Inferno," Steven Kent writes in The Ultimate History Of Video Games. "When employees make high-profile mistakes in Japan, it is not unusual for their superiors to make an example out of them for a period of time, then return them to their former stature."

Yokoi must have decided not to wait around for his restoration. He left the company in August 1996 after more than 27 years on the job, and founded his own handheld game company called Koto (Japanese for "small town"). It produced a game system similar to the Game Boy, only with a bigger screen and better speakers. We'll never know what kind of gains he might have made against the Game Boy, because on October 4, 1997, he was killed in a car accident. He was 57.

Hope this can make it on your fine website, or at least be acknowleged in a reply e-mail. If not, I understand.

Thanks for taking the time to type this out Rob. I wish the article had been written on a better note, or on personal experience for that matter. But alas, it's a pity positive coverage is hard to come by. Then again, as we all know too well, what Yamauchi did to Yokoi was unforgivable. Still one has to believe that Gunpei in the end did what any father would do, show off his baby boy to all who wanted to see. And who knows? This coverage might just spark interest from people out there new to the Virtual Boy or Gunpei Yokoi's heritage.

An established website called Rottentomatoes.com even goes as far as to report specific details (of text) that are on the back of the box depicted above. An although that could have just been copied and made to look like info we have on-site, that seems a bit too extreme. So I'm inclined to believe it must be taken from a promo flyer or something Nintendo gave out to retailers. Read & decide for yourselves:

Release Date: Apr 8, 1995
Game Description:
Prince Dorin has tumbled into a dank and dangerous world full of evil enemies and heinous beasts that are chomping at the bit for some royal blood. In DRAGON HOPPER, you must lead the Prince on a journey to recover the four Spirits of Faeron in order to return to his home in Celestia. If you can find the hidden keys, you'll be able to travel through warp zones and find the stars that will transport you to another world. And if you're able to find the four Spirits, you just might make your way home, if you can survive the creatures and obstacles that stand in your way.

Platform: Virtual Boy

Genre: Action

ESRB Rating: Kids to Adults

Special Features:
• Deep, involving gameplay
• All kinds of obstacles and enemies
• Find the four Spirits to escape to your home
• Battery backed memory to save your progress
• One player only

Credits:
• Distributor: Electro Source

Other Info:
• Location: USA
• Control Elements: Joystick, Gamepad

But there's more gamenews! Paulo send me a really fun-fact email the other day. We all know that games on the Virtual Boy like Wario Land, Mario Clash, Mario's Tennis, Galactic Pinball, Panic Bomber, Waterworld, Virtual League Baseball, V-Tetris, Golf, Virtual Bowling & Space Invaders had their predecesors and sequels on other Nintendo platforms by the very same developers. Only sometimes under a different title. Well, Paulo just discovered another, before this, unknown prequel!

I´m a VB fan and I found something interesting you might want to know. Check this out. Take a look at the Famicom / NES game called Joy Mecha Fight. It´s the father of the awesome TELEROBOXER! Read this text:

For all you Galactic Pinball PLAYERS out there. There are some high scores coming in, and Mr. Brown is requesting an exchange of tips to get higher scores on the different tables. I'm not the best pinball player out there (my friends kept beating me, ack!). I don't know of any other tricks outside those listed at the Codes section, under Galactic Pinball. But I do know there's a bunch of people dying to compete, so if everyone would be so good to reply (email us here) to the following message.... then I'll probably start up a highscores & tips section :-)

I'd like to submit my Galactic Pinball high scores. Here they are in their galactic glory...
Cosmic: 17,261,500
Colony: 27,299,000
UFO: 51,236,000
Alien: 45,067,100
Also, I was wondering. Do you know of any other codes for the game, aside from the 50 million credits goal and the Samus Bonus game? Thanks in advance.

After adding a new wallpaper yesterday, I took my own request, and made a new wallpaper for everyone to enjoy. The best thing is it only took me a short while to make, and although it may look simple, I think it's a classic. Click here to download the new wallpaper. I won't spoil the surprise, so just click it and visit the wallpapers section too.

Hello i have been a fan of your excellent virtual boy site since i found it about 5 months ago and i must say that it is an excellent website and is a great resouce for Virtual Boy information.
It's nice to see that there is at least one great website devoted to one of the most innovative and fun systems ever made.
Anyways...About the rarity list.
I looked on it and i noticed that Red Alarm is classified as C for Common.
Well this may have been true at one point or another but as of recently i have noticed a sudden price spike for Red Alarm on ebay.
Sometimes a single copy without the box or book has gone for near 20$
I got mine a while ago for a reasonable price of 8$ but that was before it just suddenly went up.
And the frequency of it appearing on ebay has slowed somewhat.
I know that it may still be common but you might want to consider classifying it as maybe Uncommon.
I had a few minutes to kill so i decided i would email you to tell you about this.

Technicly speaking anything Virtual Boy could be classified as "Uncommon" ;-)
But seriously, Mr. Hughes makes a good point and a right one. VB games are becoming increasingly hard to come by. It's now been 8 years since it was released, and 7 years since Nintendo stopped production of the hard- & software. Stores hardly stock the games anymore, and if they do it's mostly in Japan or online. Which makes the ways to obtain the games you'd love to play, limited, from region to region or person to person.

One of the main things IkoDa wanted to incorporate in the Rarity list is, to NOT make it dependable on ebay.com auctions. You can see values changing on there and anywhere all the time. But something that doesn't rapidly change is the average value worldwide. Sure, some games that sell in Japan for a 100 Yen (read: under $1) will be worth ten to sometimes hundreds of times more in Europe, America, or elsewhere. But a game like Red Alarm was produced in larger quantities in Japan opposed to America, so the difference in price is minimal despite the Japanese version being easier to obtain in most regions of the world. Except for the manual/box their exactly the same game anyway. In the end, on average, this will mean with a little looking around you'll still easily be able to find a copy of Red Alarm. Thus the common rating. Heck, if anyone disagrees, I have 4 boxed copies of the game as spares right now. Half of which are from the US, et visa versa, and the same goes for all other common rated VB games. But a lot of gamers or collectors prefer not to use online auctions, so I sometimes offer games for sale myself, like this: "I'm thinking of selling 1 unopened VB system with 9 mint US games at US$350,- with or without shipping, depending on how fast the buyer can pay."

Before I or anyone I knew had internet, I called up most of the import game stores in Holland and asked if they had VB games for sale. Even 6 years ago only a hand full had some (left), it took me half a year, but I got 15 games that way. Nowadays I'm pretty sure none have in stock any anymore, or even know where to get them from. Which is a pretty sad situation for gamers new to the system, as I'm sure it's the same situation in most countries worldwide. And if it's not, maybe we should make a list of non-online stores, that still stock the system and/or it's games... to help fellow VB fans out. Email us please and we'll dedicate a section to (import) game or electronics stores where you can still pick up VB stuff in the flesh :)

Now that's the kind of email we like read here at v-b.net! Thanks a lot for showing off your Virtual Boy to us Pablo :-) And while we're at it, all you fans out there, send in pictures of you & your VB collection to us via email. Don't forget it's ok to have virtual fangirls take photos aswell, we can't all be fanboys right? I've gotten plenty of email proving otherwise. Don't forget to smile to the birdy!

Musica maestro! Fast faster! Allegro allegro! Now bring in the horns! - July 21, 2003 @ 06:00 PM GMT+1 ~ Ferry

Hi, I visted your site today and was impressed by the depth of coverage on the Virtual Boy you have. As a token of appreciation, I thought I would pass on a link to an impressive Red Alarm remix at overclocked.org I think you might enjoy it ;)

Kudos to Mr. Davidson for linking us up. Six months ago I downloaded McVaffe's song and even burned it on CD, then totally forgot about it, oops! But Alan & Yasu reminded me of it when they came to visit. As I had dug up that music CD in the car, and accidently put the song on, so they asked me to send them a download link. Well, here it is for everyone to enjoy:
http://www.ocremix.org/detailmix.php?mixid=OCR00914 [[mirror]]

Hi there. I really admire your Virtual Boy site a great deal. You have the only site I've seen that actually gets the concept of Astro Incredible, which was exemplified in Gunpei Yokoi's masterpiece, "Galactic Pinball". I've got two points of interest for you to use on Virtual-Boy.net if you like. First, I have a video game MP3 site, and I've ripped very high quality MP3s from the entire soundtrack of Galactic Pinball, my favorite Virtual Boy game. I'd like these wonderful songs by Kenji Yamamoto be distributed throughout the Internet so nobody forgets our wonderful red and black system. The URL is as follows: http://chad.dkvine.com/mp3/galacticpinball/ The other thing I was going to mention is that I noticed Galactic Pinball's score counter only has nine digits. I've made it my goal to break one billion points in Galactic Pinball to see, above all else, what happens when I get more points than the game was designed for. Currently my top score is 100,192,600 on the Alien board, so I'm 10% there. I thought your readers might be interested in this. Keep up the great site, I check it every night in the Midnight Hours, hoping for an update. ALWAYS RACE!!!

A very flattering email from Mr. McCanna to say the least :) What he doesn't know is that I've been a big fan of his site, dkvine.com, for years now and love the DKU! And I was sobbing when he didn't come back with the other webmasters after their "break" :-P These 12 high-quality songs are amazing and I'll put them on our server as a backup to spread the joy. Altogether almost half an hour of great songs, everyone enjoy! My favorties are: Cosmic, Flight of Aran, and Gunpei's Voyage. Also, everyone send in your high scores for Galactic Pinball and other VB games, if we get enough in our mailbox we'll start a Top 5 best scores list for each game. It'll be tough to beat Chad though!

I also remembered that I made a very cool Galactic Pinball wallpaper a few months ago, and I'd be honored if you would put it in your Wallpaper section. It really feels great to contribute to the cause of Virtual Boy recognition, and I hope you use it. The URL is as follows: http://chad.dkvine.com/mp3/galacticpinball/wallpaper.jpg

Now that is awesome, much better than the Galactic Pinball title screen I did. It's added to the wallpapers section. And I ask everyone to make some Virtual Boy wallpapers of their own & send them in. Great, I got a new background now :) But what's up with that puck? Isn't the game called pinball?!?! This is SO confusing! ^_^

PS: Can you believe it's been 8 years since the VB got released in Japan? VB on!

I've attached 11 pages from Gamepro magazine. As far as I can tell
this is everything they published covering the Virtual Boy.
It's amazing to me how a game system made by Nintendo can come and go,
and only get 11 total pages in a major gaming magazine.
Once people realized it wasn't selling, the media stopped talking
about it completely.

This is just a brief update, because I'm in the middle of a Terminator marathon Fox is airing in preparation for T3 :-> Because of the time difference between Holland & Japan, the second part of our "new old" Gunpei Yokoi interview translation will have to wait until next week. To tide you over, Mr. Reed send us scans of every Virtual Boy article Gamepro ran. Thanks a bunch for these, they make for a great read, but the last scan is just wacky! I wonder who won that competition hehe.

Dear Ferry,

I translated only 68 page.
Can you understand my English???

I will send another page tomorrow.
Dank u.

Thank you Yasu for translating the first page of a two page 1995 interview with Gunpei Yokoi.
I can understand your English just fine :) And I'm sure our readers will appreciate your efforts.
This will be the 1^st in a chain of VB article updates. Thanks to everyone for sending in so much.

Page 68.

>From Developer.

Parent talks about Virtual Boy.

Part 1 Nintendo developing section leader. Gunpei Yokoi.

Game&Watch, Gameboy etc,
Nintendo leading hit maker Yokoi Gunpei,
He made new playing toy products.
Parent of Virtual Boy Yokoi talks process to birth and wonder fascination,
possibility of software side.

Virtual Utopia.

3 and half years ago, I start to develop this Virtual Boy.
Just time as Super Famicom market was most actively.

I thought that, TV-games that include Famicom and Super Famicom were losing interest.
So, I searched for some idea without visual software.
3 and half years ago, virtual reality was watched with keen interest.
I examined about virtual reality, whether it could become toy products.
As a result, only technology is great, but technology can't be used for toy.
But, the concept is very interesting, using head-mount display to cover the front
of eyes.
I thought that using part of concept, 3D game will be interesting.
So, that way, developing started.
We don't make the same thing. Without reality. Anywhere has reality.
We make another world,
we make game world. It can be utopia. We say Virtual Utopia. Because
code-name was VU (laugh).

How do we make it to show 3D? We tried many ways.
First, we used liquid monitor, but we can't be satisfaction. When we suffer,
we find out "private eye" that uses a light-emitting diode that is used in Virtual Boy now.
This is 1 red color, but it can show a very clear view. Drawing red picture in dark black,
we can't interpret border between screen and view. Liquid was floating TV-screen on dark,
This gave the illusion that all front of eyes is view. On that time, I felt This! (laugh).

There is no need for color.

In fact, we write picture of Mario using that monitor, it was over my
unexpected.

(left bottom photo column)
Holding to shoulder, movable, that specification comes from trace of virtual reality head mount display
Yokoi said, we tried more small light weight main body.

(P.68, 69 background purple letters)
Impact of Virtual Boy.

#1 Dumbest Virtual Boy Website Comment - July 09, 2003 @ 10:00 PM GMT+1 ~ Ferry

And the Special Award goes to: GameSpy ! Congratulations on making dumb comments.
When Mr. Brown send me this link via email I had no idea what I was about to read.
Now, I respect other people's opinions, which is what their list is clearly based on.
Although by Ben's logic me writing "BOO!" here could give him a scare, which might result in a heart attack for him, to which I should be trialed for murdering him. This is of course complete nonsense, but so is VB killing it's creator. But maybe that's GameSpy's sense of humour for ya, I think they should leave the game comedy to Penny-Arcade .

In regards to the "article" I can even go as far (as a fan can go) and admit the Virtual Boy wasn't Nintendo smartest move.... hear me out.... from an economical marketing point of view. High costs to produce for a so-called portable, and denial to most third-parties of development kits caused a lack of games variety and thus low sell-through rate. I mean when one-third of your game lineup consists of puzzlers you know you're doing something wrong. And sadly they tried to correct it (with too little too late) with the unreleased first-party RPG, Action & Racing titles.

Don't get me wrong, I love the system and most of it's games a lot as you can tell from my reviews. But the writer is clearly being in line with the rest of the nay-saying media and pointing out the negatives to get a few more website hits, and that will probably have worked. I mean, who doesn't look when someone famous falls flat on their mouth? Exactly, you watch, and even laugh if you're vicious.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the VB has never given me any back- or headaches, so I'm probably missing a negative here. But what does pain me is that time after time (online) media are so very very anxious to write off the Virtual Boy on preconceptions given by others. When with a little research (read the manual!) it'll become clear that you have to re-set the focus & depth each time you play, and half the time that will prevent possible discomforts. I have TEN friends who tried it and can vouch for that. But I digress... For example the writer starts with how famous Gunpei Yokoi's GameBoy is, but then continues saying how unremarkable he finds the Virtual Boy's games. Strange how the same creator put some of his finest work in the VB's games like Wario Land, but I guess he didn't play that or it wasn't to his liking, when staying in the vain of "it's just one opinion" of course.

Here's where my problem with an article such as that lies. The writers just don't get it, and they probably never will get it. Because you have to think "outside" the box to see what the VB wanted to be. Here's an interview quote from it's creator, Gunpei Yokoi, himself:

"When we initially started work on the Virtual Boy, it was at a time when the Super Famicom (SNES) was really booming. But we still had doubts as to how long it would take before the general public would eventually get bored with a traditional (TV/LCD) display. So we came up with the idea of a 3D image project. Now we are showing a product that coincides with the release of the Playstation and Saturn. And I think that what we originally thought was right, because many people who have seen the demonstrations of these so-called next-generation machines have already said that they just can't understand the difference between them and the and the 16-bit machines. Therefore, I think that the Virtual Boy will prove very important in this respect."

In an industry where prettier graphics above gameplay are a false forte. Mr. Yokoi & Mr. Yamauchi tried to open us gamers up to a new field of entertainment. 3D. For every person cheering the idea of innovation that VB brought, there will always be another putting it down. I would almost say the world wasn't ready for it last century, but in reality the set up business model was flawed. And in being so, closed the door into the world of virtual reality that should have now been public domain for us gamers. Now we'll just have to deal with the masses not buying, that set VR back a good decade.

Luckily there are a lot of videogame fans out there who've seen the light. Thanks to those who wrote in about their fond Virtual Boy memories, I've added 10 people to the Reader Tributes section, as well as 10 more submissions for the VB Fanlist. VB on! :-)

I have been sick in bed all week now, i feel like all kinds of crappy, but reading some of your eighty emails made me feel a bit better plus guilty for not updating anything decent in a while. But don't worry as soon as i get better there will be too many updates for even me to fathom *sneezes repeatedly* oh good grief i'm going back to bed. Oh hey maybe i should test playing virtual boy with the flu, let me grab my vb... no, no wait, i better not do that, i wouldn't want to start enjoying waterworld now, i might get nightmares of endlessly similar levels where i'm falling into the water with enola, and there's sharks! someone help me! kevin costner? help! i'm falling, i'm faaaaaalliiiiiiiing!! by the love of god someone press the start button!!

Well well well, guess what I've been doing these last few days? Ab-so-lu-te-ly NOTHING! Hehe, it's finally summer holiday for me after a week of excruciating long 4-hour tests. So I felt in my good right to do a whole lot of nothing these past days. You know, play some Virtual Boy & GameCube (Wario's 2nd 3D outing released in Europe 1st yesterday!). Watch some series & movies (Mulholland Drive is just too weird!). Generally being too lazy to turn on the internet even (I'll email you all later, it's all good here). And tomorrow I'm off to the beach with some friends again. So if I postpone the extra mega-huge update I want to do, for a few more days, then you know it's because I'm relaxing on the beach ;-) All things aside there's a lot of virtual stuff to be done this summer, so I'll be back next week. Adios amigos "VB ON!"

It should appear to turn a coppery red color, a change caused by the Earth's atmosphere bending or refracting sunlight into the shadow.

Been mostly busy studying, all the cool VB news keeps piling up in my mailbox, I hope I can get to replying and updating regularly again against the summer. Last week, though, was truely awesome with two friends from the UK and Japan visiting me for the first time to meet up in Holland, we went to dinner, see windmills, tulips, queensday + an amusementpark, and we of course played Virtual Boy! Much fun was had by all, thanks for a great time guys, I could sure use the break :) On to Virtual Boy news with a blast from the past. I received from my good friend in the US of A, a really special Virtual Boy Press Kit given out in 1996. In it are the serialnumbers, game logos & new game information of released and unreleased games like Bound High and Dragon Hopper. Which makes for a very impressive read. Be sure to check out the new Bound High and Dragon Hopper screenshots on the info sheets!

Many thanks to Brian, who just send me the latest versions of his awesome new Virtual Boy FAQ's/guides for everyone to enjoy! Here they are below, please click each game title to go to it's individual FAQ:

Always wondered what Metroid would look like in Virtual Boy 3-D? Sam shows you at his website here! And if you're wondering why Pete & IkoDa aren't able to update as much as they used to, it's because they can't access the v-b.org server through their cable connection right now. So it looks like you're stuck with me & my slow updates for the moment. Yeah I know, I feel sorry for you too :-P I should have two brand new US VB units with a lot of games for sale soon too! I'm thinking of selling 1 unopened system with about 10 mint US games at US$350,- with or without shipping, unsure yet. I've finished updating the Reader Tributes & VB Fanlist sections, thanks to everyone who has had themselves be heard from! I hope I can show more pictures next update.

Recent listings from Japan are saying that Nintendo Dream's magazine GameCube Demo Disc in Japan is going to include much more than movies & a playable versions of Rune II (10 minutes), Viewtiful Joe (10 minutes), Famistar 2003 (3 innings), and supposedly Made in Wario for the Game Boy Advance will be playable on the disc too!!
For the first time on the Game Boy Advance, a game will have a different name in all three major regions of gaming. Made in Wario in Japan, Wario Ware Inc.: Micro Minigame$ in America, and Wario Ware: Minigame Mania in Europe. I'm hearing great receptions about this gaming oddity ranging from 80% - 100% scores, so take a look at it on shelves worldwide soon! The game's been out in Japan for little over a month now and it's been VERY well received, topping the weekly Degenki Charts with average sales of 35,858 and with total sales of over 293,437 in such a short time, definately a big hit. Goes to show that (crazy fun) retro gaming is here to stay. Look forward to in-game Virtual Boy footage and pictures as soon as IkoDa gets off his behind and imports the (English) game :)

Is that cool news or what? To top it off, Mortal Kombat 5 for the GBA is an A rated M game with 2-player linkup aswell. If you're anything like me (no we're not all crazy in the head -editor) you're probably thinking about buying this videogame and a GameCube GameBoy Advance Player that's due release worldwide by quarter three 2003. Which with a little (big -editor) imagination would make you feel like you're playing Mortal Kombat VB on your TV screen! All red 'n black baby!

Hehe, hope you all enjoyed this years April 1st joke, I know I loved pretending VB never died. I guess it wasn't too hard for me, being in denial for seven years does that to one ^_^ If you didn't see how I convincingly (if I may say so myself) added Virtual Boy to IGN.com's system coverage, go take a look at my "operation shock & awe" gag HERE. Sorry the website was unavailable for most of the week, I was a little under the weather or I would've put it back online sooner. Thanks to all who send me great appreciative emails and ofcourse to those who responded shocked for the first few minutes :) Anyway, as you might have noticed it's just after 6AM for me at time of writing and I didn't exactly wake up this early on a Sunday morning for the heck of it, so I got some errands to run, or drive rather. I'll be seeing you again next week. Looking at the "alternate future" site, in a way, shed a new light on how I could update, so I'll be adding nearly 300 new images to the site in coming weeks. Plus ofcourse bringing you the latest extensive Gunpei Yokoi-San coverage. VB on!

Continueing our Gunpei Yokoi IGDA coverage - March 16, 2003 @ 10:00 PM GMT+1 ~ Ferry

I'm editing all the pictures from Gunpei Yokoi's family. I'm planning to over-expose all you fans to this historical event, so until I'm finished: A Word From Graeme Devine -- Like many of you, I got back from a wonderful GDC and promptly caught the flu. Lying in bed after watching one too many Captain Scarlet DVDs, I had plenty of time to reflect on the adventure the previous week had been. And what a GDC it was. The biggest moment for me was the posthumous presentation of the Lifetime Achievement Award to Game Boy creator Gunpei Yokoi's family by Sega's Yuji Naka during the Game Developers Choice Awards. Standing off stage watching this unfold is something I will treasure for the rest of my life. I was on stage next to present the Game of the Year, and found it very hard to keep all the emotion bottled. I talked to the IGDA's GDC Scholarship recipients and our chapter coordinators from all corners of the world. I loved the international feel we seemed to foster at this year's GDC. Graeme Devine Chairperson, IGDA

Gunpei Yokoi Lifetime Achievement Award Ceremony - March 06, 2003 @ 11:59 PM GMT+1 ~ Ferry

The 3rd Annual Game Developers Choice Awards** were held tonight in San Jose as part of the ongoing Game Developers Conference. As with the earlier AIAS Awards, Nintendo did quite well with Animal Crossing picking up a Game Innovation Spotlight Award and Metroid Prime picking up three awards; Rookie Studio of the Year, Excellence in Level Design, and the coveted Game of the Year.

While the coronation of the Game of the Year was exciting, the highlight of the night was definitely the honoring of Nintendo's Gunpei Yokoi with the Lifetime Achievement Award. Last year's honoree, Sega Sonic Team's Yuji Naka, did an excellent job in presenting the award to Yokoi's family with a touching speech that highlighted Yokoi-san's career and credited him as a respected rival that helped push Sega developers to work that much harder during the fierce Nintendo/Sega battles of the 80s and early 90s. Congratulations to all of tonight's winners, particularly the Yokoi family, and thanks to the International Game Developers Association for putting on a good award show for game developers by game developers.

I'm still waiting to receive footage of Gunpei Yokoi's family in attendance, and perhaps some details on Yuji Naka's speech honoring Gunpei Yokoi's Lifetime Achievements. More as/if it comes in.

** : The International Game Developers Association (IGDA) is an independent, non-profit association established by game developers to foster the creation of a worldwide game development community. The IGDA's mission is to build a community of game developers, which leverages the expertise of its members for the betterment of the industry and the development of the art form. The Awards are seen as the Oscars of videogames.

Virtual Boy games RETURN briefly on GameBoy Advance - March 02, 2003 @ 09:41 PM GMT+1 ~ Ferry

Hey. It's me again. To bring you the strangest VB videogame news since 1996:

First off I'd like to make clear that Nintendo are not going to be re-releasing Virtual Boy games on the GameBoy Advance. And yes I know that's a bummer, but the VB's 3D wouldn't look as good on the GBA for entire games anyway. Now on to the bright side, stick with me! Nintendo has developed a new action game featuring our favorite anti-hero Wario. It's going to be released in Japan on the 21th of March as "Made In Wario", in America on 26th of May as "Wario Ware, Inc.: Mega Microgame$", and later on in 2003 in Europe. 'So what's the big deal?' I hear you asking, well here's what...

When starting up the GameBoy Advance, you're greeted with a typical Wario-style introduction. While channel surfing on his couch, Wario comes across a commercial announcing how profitable video games have become, which gives him a brilliant idea. Immediately, he rushes out to buy a PC and starts his own gaming company, Wario Ware, Inc. Soon, he’s not only transformed his pad into a full headquarters, but has called several friends across town to share in the profits as well.

There are several modes that allow you to play the microgames in different settings, but the main game has you starting at Wario’s place and progressing on to new developers across town. Every time you move on to a different developer, you’ll be treated to an entertaining cut-scene that sets up that developer’s theme. Once you get started, you’ll be presented with a status screen that shows how many chances you have left to screw up, how many games you’ve beaten, and what level you’re on.

After a couple seconds of looking at the status screen, a random minigame out of a total of 200 minigames will pop up, and you’ll have a total of five seconds to identify the goal and complete it. Instructions are simply one-word commands that flash on the screen: Jump, Dodge, Shoot, Catch, Dress, Vacuum, etc. It’s a frenzied test of your reaction time that will make you curse the need to blink. After playing about ten of a developer’s games, you’ll have a “boss game” to complete, which is usually longer and more in-depth than the others. Once you get past the boss game, the level rises forcing you to do more in the same 5 second time frame. For example, at level 2, you will need to jump on two goombas instead of one. At level 3, you’ll need to jump on three, and so forth.

After you have cleared enough games, a new developer will open up with a different batch of games. The developers each have unique themes and status screens. Jimmy will have you playing sports games like bowling, tennis, or jump-rope on his mobile phone, and every time you lose a game, one of the battery indicators will go out. When the battery’s dead, so are you. Another girl has games based on personal hygiene; you’ll have to do things like put in eye drops, pick a nose, brush teeth, cut hair, or sniff up a drip of snot.

What’s likely to be the biggest attraction, though, is the batch of 5 second classic Nintendo games. The status screen is set up like a Game Boy playing a very obvious spoof of the original Dragon Warrior. Your chances are displayed as HP, and the number of games beaten is displayed as EXP. As the character walks along, you’ll get a message saying, “A game has appeared,” and after you complete a game, another message telling you, “You have felled the game,” as if it were a monster. The number of games is astounding, and includes F-Zero, Super Mario Bros., Coffee Break (the flyswatting game from Mario Paint), Metroid, Duck Hunt, Balloon Fight, The Legend of Zelda, Dr. Mario, and I even spotted Virtual Boy, Super Scope, and R.O.B. games. Again, since these are all 5 second games, it’s very simple. In Zelda, you’ll need to enter a cave. Mario will have to jump on goombas, and you’ll need to avoid obstacles in Balloon Fight. Overall, "Wario Ware, Inc. Mega Microgame$" looks like it will be an instant hit, excellent to play for short periods of time. AND it will be extra interesting for Virtual Boy fans to find out what VB games are included!! ^_^

Following is a Chalvo 55 GameBoy Review specially written by Shawn:

Chalvo 55 is a black & white gameboy game put out by Japan System Supply in 1997, 21th of February. JSS is the same company who intended to release Bound High for the Virtual Boy. When the VB tanked, it appears they channeled their ideas into a gameboy edition. Instead of having Chalvo bounce in 3D from a top-down perspective, he now bounces in a 2D single-screen world. I decided to give it a try and see what Virtual Boy fans had missed.

Now onto the game itself : first of all, you need NO knowledge of Japanese to play it. The only Kanji in the whole game are on the title graphic, all other words in the game (and there aren't many) are in English. The plot, if you can call it that, is told in a few animated scenes at the beginning and end of the game. A group of spike-helmeted robots (or people who look like spike-helmeted robots) is on a ship headed towards Earth, and they don't look friendly. One of them points towards the Earth as if to say "Earth, you are toast" On Earth, a spike-haired scientist with a wrench in his apron responds by giving Chalvo the thumbs-up signal to kick some Spike-helmet *&$%. Chalvo looks to be some sort of robot himself. A bouncy .... metal ... robot. How metal bounces I don't know. Maybe he's a rubber robot. Neither option makes a lot of sense.

Controlling Chalvo is not rocket science. The B button morphs Chalvo from a robot into a bouncing ball. Hitting it again reverses the process. As the game progresses, timing these transformations becomes critical to survival. The A button allows Chalvo to push certain objects, which is a key part of solving several puzzles. The gameplay in Chalvo 55 is unique, and actually quite fun. In ball form, Chalvo can bounce on enemies to kill them, and reach strategically placed platforms. Because of spiked ceilings, moving platforms, and other tricky obstacles, it's often necessary to switch back to robot Chalvo in order to "stick your landing". Robot Chalvo mode is also useful for moving certain obstacles out of the way, and in several areas he can open up secret doorways.

Chalvo's quest takes him across 8 levels which represent sections of the enemy spaceship. Each level is composed of a grid of rooms connected to each other, throughout which are scattered 5 gems. Chalvo needs to gather all 5 gems and then make it to the exit in order to fight the level boss, who (sadly) is ALWAYS pathetically easy to beat.
To make things interesting, there are power-ups Chalvo can obtain to help him on his mission. The UP block makes him bounce much higher for a time; the Star block makes him temporarily invincible (shades of Super Mario Bros.), and the Chalvo block is good for a 1-up. There are also blocks useful for solving puzzles and navigating each level: the GO block removes a barrier in another part of the level, and the circle block teleports you to some area likely inaccessible through other means.

The game itself has a very gentle learning curve. Levels 7 & 8 do have a few challenging moments, but the game never gets cheap or impossibly difficult. There is also a password save system that lets you restart at your highest current level.
The only games I can think of that resemble Chalvo are the GBA and Wonderswan versions of Klonoa. Both games involve jumping dexterity, pushing platforms, solving simple puzzles, and reaching a gated exit only after 5 crystals are obtained each level.
I'm a big Klonoa fan, so this is high praise from me.

Level Passwords:
Level 2 STSMFG
Level 3 SQSJDS
Level 4 SRSQFH
Level 5 QLQRDR
Level 6 SPSTFJ
Level 7 SLSPDT
Level 8 SMSQFC

Did you always wanted to take a look around Nintendo of America's HQ? Here's your chance to look around their Historical Gallery through this footage. Take special note around 00:50, you'll love it, I promise hehe. PS: Big thanks to my virtual NOA pal for this baby! I'll wear it every day ;-)

I recently read an interview with eBay.com's staff about the videogame sales market on the rightfully self-proclaimed "World's Biggest Online Marketplace". In an attempt to find out how wanted the VB and it's accessories were, the interviewer asked about it's online listings. Imagine to their (and no doubt your) surprise how popular the VB turned out to be:
Interviewer: 'How many Virtual Boys have been sold on eBay to date?'
eBay: 'Over 1 million listings for this item have closed in the Internet Gaming Category on eBay since the category broke out in 2000.'
My guess would've been close to half that, but who am I to disagree with the site owners :) See you next week. VB on!

Gunpei Yokoi to Receive Lifetime Achievement Award - February 20, 2003 @ 11:59 PM GMT+1 ~ Ferry

Hi. I'm back after a five month hiatus. I bring you public respect for the late Gunpei Yokoi:

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, USA - February 20, 2003 - The International Game Developers Association (IGDA) will recognize legendary game developer Gunpei Yokoi for the innovative work he produced during his career. Yokoi will be honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Game Developers Choice Awards ceremony on March 6 during CMP Media's Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Jose, Calif. Last year's recipient, Yuji Naka, will be presenting the award, which Yokoi's family will be accepting on his behalf.

"I am as deeply honored to be presenting this award as I was to receive it," said Yuji Naka, president and CEO, SONICTEAM, LTD., a SEGA development studio. "To have a life's work recognized by other game creators is the most meaningful honor one could receive."

In a career spanning nearly three decades, Yokoi is best known as the creator of the Nintendo Game Boy. Overwhelmingly popular since its launch, the Game Boy and its successors have sold more than 142 million units worldwide.

During his early years at Nintendo, Yokoi led the company's entry into the video game space, creating the Game & Watch -- a credit card-sized video game that introduced the cross-shaped directional pad. He went on to collaborate with Shigeru Miyamoto to design arcade classics such as "Donkey Kong," "Mario Brothers" and "Metroid."

In 1996, Yokoi founded Koto Laboratory, while continuing to consult for Nintendo. Tragically, Yokoi was killed in a traffic accident the following year.

"Gunpei Yokoi is the forefather of the portable video game industry," said Jason Della Rocca, program director, IGDA. "His innovation and creativity are sorely missed in our community. We're proud to recognize Yokoi-san and his work with the Lifetime Achievement Award."

The Game Developers Choice Awards Advisory Board selects the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award.

The ceremony for the 3rd annual Game Developers Choice Awards, the premier accolades for peer-recognition in game development, is scheduled to take place at 6:30 p.m. on March 6, 2003, at the GDC. Produced by the Gama Network, the GDC is the world's largest conference and exposition dedicated to video game development and related industries.

>> The movie and book appearantly said "Innsmouth".
Right; that's the name of the town in the story.
>> How I know it's based on a book? Take a look at this Amazon.com webstore where you can buy a book: [link]
>> And check this page out for the whole HP Lovecraft Innsmouth story or at least a huge part of it: [link]
I'm quite familiar with Lovecraft's stuff, so I already know the book and story (the book is newer stories told in a similar vein as the originals from the 20s & 30s).
>> I haven't had time to put those 2 pages of info next to the other current Insmouse No Yakata info yet (updated), so thanks for reminding me of this.
I'd just include the link to the story, since the book on Amazon isn't directly related (or comes from a time well beyond Lovecraft's).
>> I think everyone calls it "Insmouse No Yakata", because that's what the box says.
But it doesn't, not really. That's the debate I keep having with the others. If you ignore the Japanese, then it just says "Insmouse", but that's silly because there's more to the tiles. And if you look at the Japanese, you should either spell it with a more official romanization ("Innsumausu") or go with what it means ("Innsmouth"). I think the best way to put it is "Innsmouth No Yakata", I guess. Obviously though, it's not a straight-forward thing...
>> Could you confirm that what you say about the Kanji name of "Inmouse" really should be "Insumausu No Yakata"??
I'm certainly not an EXPERT on the language, but I did take a couple years of it in college, and still have my dictionaries. That said... Yes, that katakana (not kanji) does read "in-su-ma-u-su"; you can probably find websites that will back that up if you want be see for yourself. The next character "No" is hiragana, and means "of" (in the sense of possessives, like "'s", or a relationship). The next part is kanji, but would be pronounced "yakata", which means "mansion". The whole thing means something like "Innsmouth's Mansion" or "Mansion of Innsmouth", but in English, since it's not a full possessive, but more a relationship of sorts, or (actually) a compound noun, it's far more natural to just say "Innsmouth Mansion".
>> So there you have it folks, it's always good to get these mysteries out of the way, thanks to Russ Perry Jr. for having this discussion with me.

I may not have had any free time the past months or know if anything virtually new has been going on, but that doesn't mean my contacts in Japan, Hong Kong and the USA didn't get my last paid requests. In the meantime I have received SD Gundam: Dimension War & Virtual Bowling cartridges so expect reviews soon, the English Jack Brothers so I can follow the 'storyline', and last but most definately not least. Last year I also got a crown jewel imported considering Bound High never was released, I got the next best thing and that's the Metroid-like classic GameBoy game (also) by Nihon System Supply called Chalvo55: Super Puzzle Action (screenshots). This game was released almost six years ago to the day on February 21st 1997. Obviously both games feature our robotic friend Chalvo, but the GameBoy conversion is more platform action driven meaning Chalvo can transform like Samus, only not in 3D. But talking about my four new games makes me kind of sad as I haven't played them at all yet. I guess you can now understand in how much of a predicament I am... having too many games to play and all ;-)

*1= Very nice real size boxart resembling Bound High character art. Developed by Japan System Supply, published by Nintendo.
*2= Coincidence the in-game screenshots are red-ish and dated 1996 instead of 1997? I think not! Well it probably is, so just kidding.

Click on the above boxarts to view their closeup scans. It's also weird to note that the game's manual has some black/white screenshots AND some real red/black (not pink/purple) screens too. Incase anyone wants to buy this game, although I can't recommend it as I haven't played it yet, it's serial number is: DMG-A2SJ-JPN. While we're on the subject of games, our virtualpal send a whole bunch of 25 in-game Virtual Bowling pics I've added to the page as clickable links. But as Dean said about Virtual Bowling "You can't beat me!!" and I replied "You know I'm the greatest!!" as that's the way we talk when we play bowling *cough wink nudge* ...on VB.

Talking of our pal reminds me that Mr. Young has finally opened up his own Virtual Boy Odyssey website! I really like his personal approach to the page, it's a suggested good read into how he became the VB fan he is today and how he owes the VB his livelyhood. It's really fun to read how the VB changed ones life so much in a good way, much like it did for me four years ago by opening me up to a world of new posibilities & friends. Feel free join Dean's journey into manhood... I mean into a complete collection, that's what I said! On the other side of the coin we see a VB fan who's just starting to get into the world of Virtual Boy, and Sam Swayne does it with endless patience as he waits until the day he can finally buy his own VB and rejoice! Follow his thoughts and ideas until that day arrives on Next Generation Virtual Boy. (love the portablevb design by the way) Both new websites are freshly updated, and raise the number of English online VB site links to a near hundred.

For site news please check out the updated VB Fan List (+16 members) and there are a few new Reader Tributes, Links and FAQ display infos. Thanks to John Parker's blast from the past, I've been able to add a new guide to the Projects section called Make Your Own Virtual Boy Stand. We're anxiously awaiting Shamit Som to complete his Make Your Own Virtual Boy Eyeshade Holder guide, which should be coming soon. Alongside these projects there are two more projects coming from Ikoda, plus two different (but both very cool) secret projects underway by the three of us. And that's not even counting all the weird stuff Pete & Ikoda have planned for v-b.net WITHOUT my concent! :-P

VB Wario Land was the clear & justified winner with 115 votes raking up a huge 32% of the votes. A suprising second place went to the tied: Red Alarm, Mario's Tennis et all (15%). 3rd place went to Galactic Pinball (11%). 4th place to Mario Clash (7%), and the 5th place was for Jack Bros. with 6% of the total votes. I'm happy to see my Review ratings go along with the general opinion of VB fans. Now if you'll excuse me, I owe some 64DD reviews after just receiving Doshin 2. Ferry out. VB on!

It's 2003! Our New Years Gift to You! - January 29, 2003 @ 00:00 AM GMT+0 ~ Mr Tuong Lu Kim

Herro and welcome to another year with Virtual-Boy.Net! To kick things off we are having a party! All the staff are getting together to have one big pisser of a night, but in all the excitement we haven't forgotten you. We have some nice "additions" to the site including myself, the phantom new staff member who defies the boundaries of the old Virtual-Boy.Net to bring you what you have been begging for.

Gift #1: New site additions! We have added a few new features to the web site which we hope you enjoy! These include a new VB Net Logo (which we are trialing until we find one you all love!) and a special new section that is lets just say "comical".

Gift #2: Here are some awesome new Wallpapers for your Desktop! Sam from India has sent some nice images all featuring your favorite babes, go on you know you want to.... Babe Wallpaper 1 , Babe Wallpaper 2

Gift #3: As mentioned above... we are proud to bring you the very first Virtual-Boy.Net flash animation! We have been in this game for a long time, now you can have a peak into our world and see just how wacky we are. There will be a 3 part series so please stay tuned for the future installments. Coming Soon!

Gift #4: Our last gift to you is a specially developed WINAMP Virtual Boy Skin! Instructions for the Skin: Simply place the zip folder into your Skins directory (ie C:/Program Files/Winamp/Skins), Start Winamp, then click on the little button in the very top left corner of the main Control window to bring up a list of options, Choose Skins, then choose the VB Skin. Voila ! VB Winamp Skin (pic)

There's Controversy Brewing: It seems in today's world everything is becoming "old" fast, keeping up with technology is now tougher than before and everyone has their own ways of dealing with this. It's now all about being l33t and being the first to the apple so to speak, but some people have taken a different approach to this which may not be the most welcomed.

ViBE a Virtual Boy Emulator for the Macintosh, recently updated to version 1.0b2 last month has come under the spotlight. Although it does an awesome job at emulating a good portion of the Virtual Boy releases it wont however run any of your home brew demo games or any downloaded demos off the net. This is sad to see as the budding Virtual Boy developer has no real tool on a Macintosh to test out his work.

What throws more wood into the fire is that the now growing great debate about the recently surfaced "Proto" games as mentioned on DogP's site. If someone was to actually obtain one they have no way of actually playing it in ViBE, instead a black screen with "Unrecognized" would be displayed. We here at Virtual-Boy.Net do not condone the use of illegal "roms" or software.

It's a party and Customs Isn't Invited: In this changing world today the threat of terrorism grows and everyone is still very cautious of the situation. Airport security is tightened, mail checks are introduced and the overall restrictions of the freedom of today have grown. But what gets me is the way in which customs can waste a heap of time on something so innocent as a Virtual Boy.

Yep I do agree, they do look sorta "freakish".. maybe even "weapon-ish"... but it's a sad state of affairs when you are waiting for clearance of your favorite console which needs to be in writing, in fax, in email and most likely blood. In the end they arrived safe and sound, all that for a measly vb super secret project.....

Archived News Updates: At the bottom of this main page you will now find the latest 2002 News updates aswell as archived news from 1999 - 2001 from previous sites such as Ferry's VB page, The VB Weird Shit zone and VB Net.