Flashboy Plus breathes life into Virtual Boy

[dlevere]

By Randy Nelson

Nintendo's unloved offspring, the Virtual Boy, is back. Well, sorta. It's back in the sense that someone has actually made a new flash cart that allows for homebrew developers to make games for it.



That "someone" is Richard Hutchinson and the something he's built is the Flashboy Plus. Hutchinson introduced the original Flashboy back in 2007; the Plus model, costing $130 and already sold out until late this year, can store one game and has battery backup for a single save slot. (Swap games and that save state gets wiped, too.)

We know it's a long shot, but perhaps this device will lead to fan ports of 3DS games to the superior Virtual Boy.

[bungholio]

I've never even heard of the Virtual Boy? What's so superior about it?

[dlevere]

Nintendo's Virtual Boy (バーチャルボーイ, Bācharu Bōi?) (also known as the VR-32 and Virtual Utopia Experience during development) was the first video game console capable of displaying "true 3D graphics" out of the box.

Whereas most video games use monocular cues to achieve the illusion of three dimensions on a two-dimensional screen, the Virtual Boy creates an illusion of depth through the effect known as parallax.



In a manner similar to using a head-mounted display, the user looks into an eyepiece made of neoprene on the front of the machine, and then an eyeglass-style projector allows viewing of the monochromatic (in this case, red) image.

It was released on July 21, 1995 in Japan and August 14, 1995 in North America at a price of around US $180. It met with a lukewarm reception that was unaffected by continued price drops. Nintendo discontinued it the following year.

[bungholio]

I just read that from the wiki about an hour ago. I wonder if they are good.

[lee4]

unless you like going color blind.

[Mezmorize]

Whoa, I used to have one of those.
Nintendo was dumping stock of them for really cheap at KB Toys when I got mine.

Came with Tennis and Wario I believe...