Stupidly Rare Virtual Boy Game Located, Bought, and to be Resold
Ever heard of Faceball? Me neither. Well good news everyone, it is going to be the talk of all the game collecting community in a few weeks. Faceball or ニコちゃんバトル (“NikoChan Battle“) was developed by Bullet-Proof Software and was to be released as part of Nintendo second-wave of Virtual Boy games. Nintendo knew that the VB was struggling and pushed for a second wave of games in 1996. This game, along with other notable VB Holy Grails such as Bound High! and Dragon Hopper, were to be the games that breathed life back into the dying console.
But nope, Nintendo canned that harder than Gabe Newell uncans tuna for a sandwich. Alas, Faceball and the other VB games in development were either mothballed or destroyed. Not every prototype was hidden away from the world, a few leaked out. You can now find ROMs of Bound High! online and believe it or not, Faceball is going to released to the public after 16 years of languishing in obscurity!
There’s a catch. It is going to be released in cartridge format. At first, that might not seem like a big catch but it is. Turns out to obtain a copy of this game, the buyer had to pay a lot. Just how much? Well, he considered getting a second mortgage on his house but instead opted to sell off all his doubles and had to go in with another person to pay for it. It cost him a lot and he wants to make some of that money back.
He plans flashing ROMs of this game onto special VB carts, making boxes and manuals, and then selling them for the paltry sum of $100 a pop. Genius! Collectors take note, these will resell at more than double that amount within weeks of their release (no guarantee, it’ll probably flop).
PROBLEMS: First off, I haven’t played this game but I have watched the videos. It looks bad.
And if it is anything like Faceball 2000, it will suck. It will suck hard forever. Secondly, I’m pretty sure that taking a prototype, copying it, and selling it is super illegal but I’m not here to mince words about the ROM legal status. I doubt it will attract any criminal or civil penalties.
Anyways, after the buyer sells some copies he will release the ROM for free to the public. So you can either take a $100 gamble and buy a boxed copy or wait for a free ROM. I’ll tell you right now, there will not be another VB ROM dump of a previously unreleased game FOR A VERY LONG TIME after this one. Buyer beware.
Latest Comments