Virtual Boy has always lived a contradictory life. It is one of the weirdest, shortest-lived, and most mythologized consoles in Nintendo history. Cassettes are difficult to find, the price is outrageous, the hardware is aging, and the eyes are uncomfortable. As a result, many players can only choose to use emulators to “cloud experience”. Now, this situation is finally about to change! RetroOnyx has opened the third batch of pre-orders for MrCART, a full-featured menu-based flash card truly designed for Virtual Boy native hardware, making this 3D console, for the first time,“Choose games like a modern console” experience！
No computer or plug-in required, the menu is displayed directly on the screen
In the past, most of the Virtual Boy burning solutions were still in the primitive stage of filling in ROMs on the PC and switching games with external tools. MrCART takes a completely different route.
Insert the card, turn on the computer, and the menu will be displayed directly on Virtual Boy’s red display screen. Use the arrow keys to scroll up and down in the game list. After selecting, the system will burn the game you selected into the 32 Mbit built-in memory of the cartridge. The entire process is completed on the host, and there is no need to touch the computer again.
The supported format is a standard .vb file, ranging in size from 256KB to 4MB, covering almost all commercial games and most community-made works. More importantly, it has built-in SRAM archive memory, which means that you will not lose your progress just because you change the game. This is more important to the original game players than the specification sheet.
The outer casing is a replica of the original factory, but inside is an ARM chip.
The appearance of MrCART is extremely conservative. With the original size, original style casing, and standard dust cover, you won’t feel like “this is a later modified product” when plugged into the console, and collectors won’t want to flip the table at a glance.
But it is completely modern design inside, with an ARM SoC at its core, which is responsible for handling game burning and data management. Even for games with the largest capacity, the writing time is controlled within one minute, and there is almost no waiting anxiety in actual use.
RetroOnyx is responsible for mass production and shipment. It is currently producing in batches and queuing orders all the way until September. This also illustrates that Virtual Boy, a “very small circle”, is actually still alive and well.
From a collectible to a playable console
For many people, Virtual Boy has long been no longer a console to be “played with”, but a collection object that is placed on a shelf, occasionally taken pictures, and used to show off to friends how hardcore it is. There are fewer and fewer original cassettes, and their prices are getting higher and higher. If one is broken, there will be one less. Who dares to insert and unplug it every day?
MrCART directly removes this psychological threshold. The entire game library is installed on a microSD card. If you want to play, just turn it on, select and run. The cartridge is no longer a risky asset, but an interface. This is a real promoter for preserving culture, community-made games, and even new development works.
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