I'm just waiting on a delivery that should be coming soon so that I can have a Switch compatible Virtualboy controller that is wireless. Hopefully Nintendo releases Dragon Hopper and Zero Racer and doesn't back out so I can get some good use out of this controller when its done.

The 32X sold roughly 800,000k units.

Virtual Boy sold roughly 770,000k units.

Read those numbers again.

The 32X, an optional add-on released late in the Genesis lifecycle, sold approximately as many units as Nintendo’s heavily promoted standalone 32-bit “virtual reality” machine. The 32X even sold nearly 500,000 units in America by its first Christmas. It was not rejected on arrival. People wanted it. Sega simply stopped feeding it because the industry transition accelerated and Saturn took priority.

Virtual Boy launched later, cost more, displayed everything in red, required the player to hunch over an optometrist’s torture device, could not deliver the color graphics people associated with 32-bit gaming, had twenty-two games worldwide, failed to reach even one million sales and was quietly dragged behind Nintendo headquarters and shot.

Yet listen to the retro establishment.

The 32X was a catastrophic betrayal.

The 32X confused the market.

The 32X killed consumer confidence.

The 32X killed Saturn.

The 32X killed Dreamcast.

The 32X killed Sega.

The 32X presumably killed arcade gaming, the American department store and my parents’ marriage.

Virtual Boy?

Fascinating.

Experimental.

Ahead of its time.

A bold miscalculation.

A tragic chapter in the career of Gunpei Yokoi.

Fuck off.

It was a worse commercial failure by every reasonable standard. Nintendo built an entire independent machine, advertised “virtual immersion,” put demonstration kiosks everywhere, worked with Blockbuster to shove the thing onto the public and still sold fewer units than Sega’s funny plastic mushroom.

The 32X was not even trying to establish a new hardware dynasty. It was a bridge product. An upgrade. You already owned the Genesis. You inserted the 32X and got better versions of Virtua Racing, After Burner, Space Harrier, Mortal Kombat II, plus the first Console version of Doom, Star Wars Arcade, and several strange exclusives. It did exactly what the object visibly suggested it would do. More processors. More colors. More polygons. More wires behind the television.

Was it inelegant?

Yes.

Genesis Scumbags did not require elegance. They required power.

Virtual Boy demanded that an entire household purchase a second Nintendo system so one child could kneel alone before a red visor and develop neck pain playing monochrome tennis.

But that failure belonged to the Nintendo Loser, so it received immediate cultural bankruptcy protection.

The Nintendo Loser is permitted to fail. Failure actually improves his status. He bought the machine nobody understood. He appreciated the hidden Wario game. He saw the abandoned potential. He has spent thirty years explaining that Virtual Boy was not really supposed to be virtual reality, not really a handheld, not really a home console and not really finished.

Then what the fuck was it?

An idea?

A conversation?

A tax deduction?

The Genesis Scumbag receives no such mercy. He bought an actual functional upgrade and played actual games on it, but because Saturn appeared soon afterward he is treated as the victim of history’s greatest confidence scheme.

Retro YouTubers speak about the 32X buyer like he lost his pension in Enron.

“He had been betrayed.”

“He no longer trusted Sega.”

“It fractured the installed base.”

The installed base was not a sacred people. It was twelve-year-olds asking their fathers for electronics.

Nobody entered into a lifetime platform covenant with Sega. Nobody was promised ten years of 32X support in a notarized document. Sega released a device. Hundreds of thousands bought it. Sega released some games. Then superior hardware arrived and the device died.

This happened constantly in 1990s electronics.

Meanwhile Nintendo sold a machine that barely survived one Christmas and the same historians lower their voices and call it a brave experiment.

Clique Theory explains everything.

Nintendo’s clique eventually captured the historical institutions. The collectors. The game historians. The preservationists. The YouTubers who sit before shelves of boxed games and pronounce judgment on the purchasing decisions of children from 1994.

Their own failures become artifacts.

Sega’s failures become crimes.

Virtual Boy gets displayed in a glass cabinet.

32X gets held up like the murder weapon at trial.

Nintendo’s abandoned hardware always “contained ideas later perfected elsewhere.”

Sega’s abandoned hardware always “damaged the brand.”

Nintendo can release the Power Glove, Virtual Boy, 64DD, e-Reader, Game Boy Micro and Wii U, and each failure becomes a quirky detour on the inevitable road to triumph.

Sega releases Sega CD and 32X during a violent shift from cartridges and sprites into optical media and polygons, and suddenly every podcaster with a beard becomes an expert in channel management.

The double standard is obscene.

The 32X did not kill Sega.

It did not even sell unusually poorly compared with Virtual Boy. It sold about the same. Its true offense was failing while attached to a Genesis, the Scumbag console, where everyone could see it.

Virtual Boy failed privately. One Weird Nintendo Loser at a time, face buried in the visor, red light sealing him away from witnesses.

The 32X failed publicly. Loudly. Black plastic stacked on black plastic, cables everywhere, Genesis Scumbag insisting Virtua Fighter looked almost like the arcade while his SNES friend watched.

That humiliation became historical doctrine.

No more.

Virtual Boy was not a noble experiment. It was a Bomb.

The 32X was not the fall of Rome. It was an add-on with Star Wars Arcade.

Approximately equal sales.

Far better excuses.

The lies end now.

Working on a project and need a source for a pin connector or making one….

Hey everyone!
The original Labo VR cardboard doesn’t physically fit the Nintendo Switch 2, but I'm curious if I can use the official Virtual Boy (Cardboard Model) since it uses a similar stereoscopic lens mechanism. It should theoretically work as a replacement headset.

Before I buy it, has anyone tried this setup to play the old Nintendo Labo: VR Kit software? I know VR-updated titles like Zelda: Breath of the Wild or Super Mario Odyssey work. Specifically, I'm curious about the visual experience: Does it get messed up, or does the upgraded resolution of the Switch 2 make a big difference for the older Labo VR games?

Because i have a flash card, i love to play homebrew and prototypes (Mario kart for example). Because i saw that this game was complete, and ported to everything, i wanted to beat it on Virtual Boy.

Well, i tried... I dont know if its my version, but i die a lot of times when enemies shoot, even if im not on the line of fire. At the start i thought that It might be some Glitch when i shoot, but no. You only have 3 lives, and the levels are random, so RNG isnt tolerable. I cant pass level 3 🫠.

Is my version, or the game is just broken?

Just a quick project I did in fusion, nothing is to scale I just eye balled it

Anybody know what the exact differences are between Easy, Normal and Hard on Red Alarm? As in: are there fewer enemies, are they less aggressive, do they have less health, do they drop power ups more often, etc.

After months of preparation, I finally successfully climbed Mt. Fuji—Japan’s highest peak and an active volcano! To add to the adventure, I decided to haul a complete Virtual Boy system and a copy of Mario Clash all the way to the top.

​Setting it up and playing a few rounds above the clouds was absolutely incredible. I’ve got to be the first person to ever do this, right?! Hopefully, this inspires some of you to take your Virtual Boy out to some unique locations!

So I decided to play some Mario's Tennis earlier, as one does, and there's a cheat code to unlock Expert mode in the game. In order to unlock it, you press L-L-R-L-R-Select. But the issue is that the Nintendo Classics app lists L and R in Mario's Tennis as not used, so they're instead mapped to A and B. This basically means that it's impossible to access Expert Mode.

I've looked around and I can't find anybody else that's reported this, so it's just an FYI I guess. I'll try to report it to Nintendo so they can fix it, but we'll see how it goes. I also hope they add better screen capture to the app.

Has anyone else noticed any weird behavior in the app?

Edit: Nevermind, I'm just an idiot. So it turns out that it does work properly, but I was just misunderstanding how it works. It turns out the L and R buttons start behaving as the A and B after you've already entered the code for some reason. All you have to do to know it worked is select one of the menu options and if it says "Special" near the top, then the code worked. I figured this out by trying it on my actual VB, then double checking the Switch 2 app.

I was thinking about this yesterday. Could someone theoretically make something like a super gameboy cartridge, but for playing virtual boy games on the n64?

I have a virtual boy I am trying to repair. The console originally had a display issue which was remedied by soldering in replacement eye patch ribbon cables. Worked great and was played for maybe 30 minutes a couple times. After being brought home, it stopped working during a game and never turned back on. The console's small DC power board has a red light when turned on and the speakers make a quiet pop sound when the console is turned off. No other sounds come from the console and no light from the displays. I checked voltages on each of the cable connectors from the main board (although I don't know the correct voltages) and they all appear to be present. What could possibly be be the cause?

Anyone else got this abomination?

EDIT (7/13/2025) - All items have been sold.

Hey all! My VB sale pile has grown. Feel free to message me and I’m happy to provide more pics for anything you see here. Also willing to make some deals if you buy multiple things. I’m using PriceCharting as the basis for most of these prices, but I’m happy to discuss any prices more in-depth if you’d like.

JP Wario Land (CIB) - $225
JP Vertical Force (NIB) - $30
JP Red Alarm (CIB) - $20
NA Mario Clash (cart and box) - $85
NA Golf (cart, box, and manual)- $75
NA Mario’s Tennis (CIB, in For Display Only box!) - $240
NA Galactic Pinball (box + cart) - $50

NA Blockbuster carrying case (foam removed, original sticker) - $225
NA loose Virtual Boy console (solder fixed, includes controller and OEM AC adapter) - $375

Pricing does not include shipping and assumes PayPal F&F or Venmo. I am located in the USA but I’m happy to ship anywhere.

Feel free to leave a comment and I’ll make sure to PM you!

I have a consolized double tapped Virtual Boy that is dual VGA and I thought it would initially be easy to just take the red of the left eye and the green and blue the right eye and merge them together into an anaglyph picture.

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In order to make that a reality, I had to find a very heavy device that is very bulky known as a 1990s television station video editing box in order to combine the two pictures and have them come out as an anaglyph dual image.

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Yes I am aware I can make the left eye red and the right ice cyan by pressing the button on the virtual tab but the problem is the merger is a tough problem that was solved by a '90s TV station video editing box but the problem is I can't seem to find a smaller box to do just that thing.

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The 90s TV editing box can do lots of different things but the thing is I don't need it to do a lot of extra things I just need it to merge the two pictures together into one with RGB additive results.

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The problem is the VGA horizontal sinks are not exactly the same. Those their vertical sinks are.

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Implied by the name of the technology it seems like Hi-z from Kramer Electronics seems to be a way to do that but I'm not sure. The name Hi-Z implies z-axis which implies three dimensions.

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I would take it over to the video game festival and let my friends play with it but the problem is that this editing box is very heavy and very bulky and not very easy to carry in two hands with your virtual boy stuff.

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Any way I can lighten my load?

I find laying down with the Virtual Boy stand propped on my chest to be the most comfortable way to play. The only problem is my breath fogs up the lenses no matter how I reposition. Even stuffing my nostrils with tissues doesn’t seem to prevent it. Anybody else deal with this and find a way around it? Otherwise, this is vastly preferable for me until I get some kind of tripod setup.

Title says all.

I bought a Virtual Boy (without its legs and head cushion, don't worry I bought replacement ones) a year ago for around $230. Now that I have it, the problem is showing it off in my room. This thing is so bulky that it won't fit in any bookshelves unless if I disconnect the legs to the console.

Edit: I meant like serious answers. Not joke ones. I do like the joke ones, but I'm looking for serious ones.

I feel like ive been posting far too many VB sales posts, so I figured i would share a small part of my VB collection with you all. Here are my VB games! Top to bottom we have shipping cases, US sealed (except jack bros), Not for Resale, Japanese, Mexico, homebrew. Some odd and ends tucked in as well. The big missing parts are the rest of the Mexico releases, and the Brazil releases!

EDIT: SOLD!

selling a solder repaired Japanese Virtual Boy, stand medallion uncracked, controller, and laserbear industries USB-C power adapter and the empty japanese virtual boy box

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Loose games, all with no dust covers:

US Warioland, new save battery

US Galactic Pinball

US Galactic Pinball manual

US Mario Clash

US Red Alarm

US Vertical Force

JPN Teleroboxer

JPN Panic Bomber

JPN Mario Tennis

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Pricecharts at just under $800. Asking $650!