Project VBoot, Virtual Boy Flash Kit design project may be over!

[Another World]

The Nintendo Virtual Boy has seen a great many releases this past year, including prototype dumps (Space Pinball), unreleased game dumps (Bound High! and Faceball), homebrew (Fishbone, Insect Combat, Faceball Remastered), tools (FacEdit), documents (VB Sacred Tech Scroll), some awesome demos (Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting, F-Zero Maximum Velocity), and even a hint at a MSX/Sega CD full 3 act release of Snatcher.

ROM hackers, Homebrew enthusiasts, developers, and gamers, have been able to enjoy the Virtual Boy software library on actual hardware thanks to the FlashBoy/FlashBoy+. This Flash Kit has worked extremly well but has always been limited by a few factors. These include: inability to transfer saves to a computer, Windows environment required for flashing ROMs, and a 2MB game limitation. Project VBoot aimed to modernize the scene by delivering a microSD, menu driven, Virtual Boy Flash Kit design. For as far as the project has come, it seems to have stalled out. Those following the project are well aware of the multiple redesigns and late nights which have gone into the development phase, but just as it was nearing the top of the hill, the release of the Oculus Rift seems to have curbed it permanently. While some talk has surfaced about passing on the design to talented Flash Kit developer, Krikzz, no official comments have yet been posted.

Gamers who are interested in reading about Project VBoot can do so via the link below. If you own a VB and would like to post your opinions about the project, and let the developer see your support, you can do so via the third link below. If we stand together as retro gamers we may just be able to invoke change. Nintendo's little red retro console that could, maybe still can.

Project Vboot
Project Page
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PlanetVB Virtual Boy Coding Competition

 

[Foxi4]

I don't see why anyone would blame the Oculus Rift of all things for any lack of development - the problem lies in the fact that it just ain't easy.

In any case, if there's a demand for a kit like that, Krikzz will carry on working on it, no doubt.

 

[Amber Lamps]

It's cool to have flash carts for a lot of systems but didn't this system only have like a dozen (plus a baker's dozen maybe) games? It wouldn't even be worth purchasing. Plus from my experience of sd2snes, when you start talking about homebrew for MSU-1 it is all hype. Really awesome homebrew games coming to an old system and then the developers' interest wanes off into oblivion. So they delivered like one finished title for sd2snes. Can we count on Street Fighter II full game for virtual boy? I doubt it. SD2SNES ever going to see SuperFX or other chips working? doubtful, since it takes a lot of time and when a project is nearly complete it is easy to dump it off and stride away from it.

If a flash cart for this console is really cheap (I'm thinking this is going to be upwards of $120 which everyone is going to gawk at), and people could obtain the console itself relatively cheap it might have a little bit of promise. But for the most part, most people didn't like this system when it was out nor did they when it was at KayBee for $15 brand spank a warez pup's ass new. I'm seeing that this flash card kit is only going to be for the enthusiast and not the typical rom / warez pup kid. /Begin complaints about cost versus playing on an emulator for nexus 7 It never ends.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

People play Virtual Boy games on their Oculus Rift? :o

 

[Another World]

VBJin got Rift support: https://code.google.com/p/vbjin-ovr/

-another world

 

[captain_corona]

nice hopefully its affordable

 

[Another World]

nice hopefully its affordable

Its like you only read "virtual boy" & "flash kit" and then hit "reply"

-another world

 

[Deleted member 473940]

lol nevermind.

 

[KyoufuNoDaiou]

FlashBoy+ has the ability to save.

 

[Another World]

FlashBoy+ has the ability to save.

i never said otherwise. i said it has no save back-up, as you no way to transfer saves off the cart for later use, use by emulation, etc. but i can see how you got confused, so i'll make a quick edit to the first post.

-another world

 

[KyoufuNoDaiou]

i never said otherwise. i said it has no save back-up, as you no way to transfer saves off the cart for later use, use by emulation, etc. but i can see how you got confused, so i'll make a quick edit to the first post.

-another world

Ah, okay. I just read it the wrong way!

 

[captain_corona]

Its like you only read "virtual boy" & "flash kit" and then hit "reply"

-another world

huh? i read it lol i meant if it goes back into development ever...

 

[Another World]

Can we count on Street Fighter II full game for virtual boy? I doubt it..

attached are screenshots, just released, by the guy who created the engine. it was described as images from "the almost final version". the demo was rather impressive, all that was missing were the sprites and some tweaking. it would appear at this point that the game is going to get released.



-another world

 

[Another World]

something else to add. sf II supports 2-player versus via the soon-to-be-released vb link cable. if they get the vb-to-pc cable working as suggested, we may be able to play across the internet with another vb. in addition, the maker of the FB+ said he has a 32MB design that he can slap together rather quickly. so it looks like sf II may get a CIB release.

-another world