{"id":1065,"date":"2014-07-21T13:03:12","date_gmt":"2014-07-21T18:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/?p=1065"},"modified":"2014-08-05T11:04:18","modified_gmt":"2014-08-05T16:04:18","slug":"retro-scan-of-the-week-the-99-virtual-boy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/archives\/1065\/retro-scan-of-the-week-the-99-virtual-boy","title":{"rendered":"<span id=\"retro_color\">[ Retro Scan of the Week ]<\/span> The $99 Virtual Boy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"\/wp-content\/images\/retroscan\/virtualboy_lowprice_large.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/wp-content\/images\/retroscan\/virtualboy_lowprice_small.jpg\" alt=\"The Nintendo Virtual Boy for $99 Nintendo Power Advertisement - 1996\" class=\"retroscan\"\/><\/a><span class=\"freecaption\"><em>&#8230;in which Nintendo begs, &#8220;Please, PLEASE, buy a Virtual Boy.&#8221;<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><center><em>[ From Nintendo Power &#8211; August 1996, p.107]<\/em><\/center><\/p>\n<p>Oh how times change.  Back in January, I <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/archives\/1023\/retro-scan-of-the-week-virtual-boy-wasteland\" target=\"_blank\">posted a scan<\/a> of an early, cocky Nintendo Virtual Boy advertisement from 1995 (the year the Virtual Boy launched).  Here&#8217;s an ad for the Virtual Boy just one year later in which Nintendo advertises the console&#8217;s new low price of $99 (its original MSRP was US $179.99, which is $275.26 today when adjusted for inflation).<\/p>\n<p>As you probably know, things didn&#8217;t go so well for the Virtual Boy.  I bought one new for $30 from Toys &#8216;R&#8217; Us in either late 1996 or early 1997.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Discussion Topic of the Week:<\/strong> Imagine a world in which the Virtual Boy had a full color display but cost twice as much (say, $399.99) new.  Do you think the Virtual Boy would have fared better in the marketplace?<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;<br \/>\n<strong>See Also:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/archives\/1023\/retro-scan-of-the-week-virtual-boy-wasteland\">Virtual Boy Wasteland<\/a> (RSOTW, 2014)<br \/>\n<strong>See Also:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/archives\/880\">Virtual Boy Vortex<\/a> (RSOTW, 2012)<br \/>\n<strong>See Also:<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pcworld.com\/article\/220922\/the_history_of_steroscopic_3d_gaming.html\">The History of Stereoscopic 3D Gaming<\/a> (PC World, 2011)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230;in which Nintendo begs, &#8220;Please, PLEASE, buy a Virtual Boy.&#8221; [ From Nintendo Power &#8211; August 1996, p.107] Oh how times change. Back in January, I posted a scan of an early, cocky Nintendo Virtual Boy advertisement from 1995 (the year the Virtual Boy launched). Here&#8217;s an ad for the Virtual Boy just one year [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,27,26,9],"tags":[213,149,150,143,129,865,60,864,144],"class_list":["post-1065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-video-game-info-and-history","category-regular_features","category-retro-scan-of-the-week","category-retrogaming","tag-213","tag-3d","tag-advertisement","tag-nintendo","tag-nintendo-power","tag-price-reduction","tag-retro-scan","tag-stereoscopic-3d","tag-virtual-boy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1065"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3378,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1065\/revisions\/3378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}