
We've seen a variety of Nintendo's illustrious home consoles turned into handhelds by talented modders with some know-how and plenty of elbow grease and spray paint — we're thinking of fanmade consoles like the Wiiboy Color or the Portable N64 — but you probably wouldn't expect somebody to go to the trouble (and from the video below, the trouble looks to have been considerable) of building a handheld Virtual Boy.
That's exactly what YouTuber Shank of Shank Mods has done, though. Apparently taking "lots of custom electronics, hardware and code" and a whole year to assemble, the result is a small handheld Virtual Boy — dubbed the Real Boy — that runs proper VB carts on a console you hold in your mitts (rather than play on a tabletop through a viewfinder).
This smartphone-sized portable version of Nintendo's least successful console features a custom screen and housing, and even has light up buttons for that authentic glowing red ambiance of the original stereoscopic 3D system. Pretty neat!
The 27-minute video below goes into quite some detail of the trials and tribulations of constructing this little machine, but we have to say that the results are rather impressive. Shank Mods has form in this area, with other mods including portable Wiis and GameCube Joy-Cons, but the Real Boy still stands out as a mighty achievement in our books, even if the Virtual Boy isn't everyone's cup of tea.
Maybe it's the rabid Nintendo fan in us, but we've got a soft spot for its small library of games and the ability to play them on a device with a regular screen without having to take a headache break every 15 minutes sounds rather appealing.
Further reading:
Let us know below if you'd be tempted to pick a Real Boy if you saw one for sale.
Comments 26
I am one of the few who got a Virtual Boy brand-new (Christmas 1996, when I was a teenager) and I still have it. I have gone back and forth from loving it to hating it over the years, but I am still very fond of it and my collection of games. I would absolutely LOVE to have one of these... but I can't bear the thought of destroying my VB to make a handheld version. (That, and I imagine it would cost something like $1,000 or more to hire a modder to do it.)
The guy who made this is a certified legend. Well done.
Amazing 👏
Incredible work
Ohhh... I would ADORE one of these!!!
Nice, the great Gunpei Yokoi would be proud.
That is some real dedication, looks nice as well.
It'd be amazing if they made it with the same kind of tech as the 3DS so it can give the glasses-free stereoscopic 3D effect.
It was such a wasted opportunity for Nintendo to not remake (at the very least) VB Wario Land for the 3DS.
@Mario_maniac Or even just half ass it and emulate the Virtual Boy games through the virtual console on the 3DS, that's an insane missed opportunity that they never incorporated any VB content into the 3DS.
But does it have the stereoscopic 3D, kinda like the 3DS has, because if not then they really missed a trick here.
@impurekind No, only one "eye" output was working, check the video.
Bring back VB Wario Land, Nintendo, you cowards.
Shame the 3DS never got Virtual Boy Virtual Console
This is incredible
There's like several excellent VB games. No idea why they didn't get a 3DS VC release. Nintendo hates money sometimes.
@duffmmann I have a 3DS with cfw and there's actually a virtual boy emulator and with some fiddling it works with the 3d kind of. It's pretty cool actually
@Babybear12 Yes, I actually have that too, but I was talking officially. And that emulator is alright, but it's not quite full speed, you just know Nintendo could easily optimize their past system to work on the 3DS better than the homebrew scene can.
I was wondering if you guys were gonna talk about this. Lol
Loved when he stuck the AVGN duct tape clip in.
No Wario Land Virtual Boy on the 3DS is one of Nintendo's biggest missed opportunities,
along with the lack of Pokemon Snap on Wii U.
I would pay $300ish for something like this.
I would actually love to have one of these.
@Babybear12 which 3DS? I read the OG model couldn’t handle it, only the New 3DS models, and even then it’s ropey
ALL HAIL VIRTUAL BOY!
If only Nintendo cared for the VB's library. I'd love to play those games I never will.
My virtual boy (bought on clearance in '96) died a horrible death in college when a red solo cup full of box wine spilled on it one night. It couldn't be salvaged. RIP, king.
@Franklin Dude, preach. I've always said the exact same thing. Pokemon Snap was made for the Wii U, the GamePad would have been the camera that you move around in real space to take your photos, it's so obvious that it's maddening we instead got a new Pokemon Snap on the hardware that followed.
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