Unreleased Virtual Boy link cable finally surfaces!?

This Japanese auction of already rare stuff, has something else very unusual. A cable marked VUE-004!
News on it is starting to go around. Wonder if it's fully wired?

http://page5.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/e146815828

 

WOW! Thanks for sharing! Never knew the VB was even capable of LAN'ing. Hmm, i wonder if there is an in-built LAN feature/option on Faceball VR proto... (i'm a huge Faceball 2000 / MIDI Maze fan and collector)

 

Definitely a cool find. I could see that fetching quite a lot of money. Too bad that even if you had a Virtual Boy the chances of another person having one were pretty low.

 

I've never even played a Virtual Boy, Yet find this awesome. Maybe I should get out more

 

it's sad the VB got a shorter lifespan, and not many games for it.
way ahead of it's time, even if colour display is limited.
i can imagine what it would be like if mp games found in the gbx series was widespread with VB, all the headsets sat on tables, up to four folks leaning into them, all joined at the skull via a wacky link cable. i'm missing out here, that would be SWEET to encounter. (a local mp game on the VB, if you're going to take yourself out of reality, do it right, immerse.)
as for the object, more of a collector piece than any viable uses, unless it give any potential VB homebrew devs another angle? (if there was hb that is? not finding any)
[edit]
typo.

 

I could imagine a few of these existed for the VB dev kits. Now the question is how many survived after Nintendo took the kits back. I would imagine the only surviving ones are in Japan hiding somewhere.

 

It's not a LAN, it's just a serial link cable like the Gameboy has, but still very cool.

Mario Tennis supposedly has a link mode built into the code. I wonder if this might unlock it?

 

Sorry - that's what i meant. Just to network the game (as per the Gameboy 4P link).

 

iirc, Waterworld had an up to 8-player mode. I'm not sure if this was a 'pass it around' thing or a linked thing, but I doubt many of the few games released make use of it. I'd imagine the tennis one does.

 

Yeah, Waterworld is definitely a "pass it around" thing only. Thus, its 8-player mode only works if a person can actually get another 7 people together, who are all willing to sit around and wait for the one Virtual Boy to be passed to them. I actually think that a group of people on Planet Virtual Boy got together once and did just that, just to be able to say that it was actually done.

As for the commercially released Virtual Boy games, absolutely none of them can make use of the 2-player link cable option. Not even the prototypes such as Faceball, which were dumped and released online long after the VB's market life was over, have the option for such. Nevertheless, there are a couple of homebrew titles already released, which make use of it, and there are probably a couple more that are still in the works. Thus, certain people already have homebrew link cables to play such games, and more are being made and worked on. It would certainly be very cool, though, to be the only person in the world who is using the only known, official Nintendo Virtual Boy Link Cable to play such games.

 

I thought there was a homebrew version of the cable also?

 

who cares though? its a virtual boy.

EDIT: the games weren't bad by any means, but the design and usage of the console was horrid, there.. that's a little less mean

 

You're on a forum about Rare and Obscure hardware, if it exists, there is almost always someone who cares. Many people here could say who cares about the 360 as well, but we refrain

 

good point, good point, i just have very cringe worthy memory's of using this thing

 

There is a port on the thing that just screams link port. No other obvious purpose for it.

No idea why there would be considering nothing available can take advantage of it. Given the connector looks more/less custom it'd be easier to wire up a D-SUB connector for use as a link cable instead. Contemplating doing that to two PS1s to avoid having to buy a link cable that costs more than a spare VGA cable would.

 

I like my virtual boy its quirky and one of a kinda and definately a convo starter. I pull it off the shelf from time to time.

 

There's been several mod efforts.
http://www.projectvb.com/linkcable.html
http://www.planetvb.com/modules/workshop/?02

More recently a professional looking version is apparently in the works.
http://www.planetvb.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?post_id=26026#forumpost26026

 

Bit off topic: Was there ever a link cable for the n64??

 

Not a direct connection, but...
*) The 64DD had a modem. Some games could interact through randnet to pass resources or for turn-based multiplayer.
*) One Shogi game had a modem and your matches could be sent to one of the Japanese shogi scoring boards.
*) Japanese Pokémon games had a cell phone dongle that could be used in tandem with Pokémon Stadium for replaying (and playing?) remote matches.

 

hmm okies,
Yeah I know about that shogi (backgammon like?) game, I own it hehe

Cool if there was a homebrew version of rad net (like those system link services for the original xbox)