Two unreleased NES games have been listed on eBay. The first is a prototype cartridge of a game called Battlefields of Napoleon (including all of the original packaging design), and the second one is a demo of a Nintendo Power Glove game developed by Rare.
Napoleon was never released locally, but a Japanese version of this real-time strategy game was made available for the Famicom as Napoleon Senki.
The Rare title was a Consumer Electronics Show sample that never saw the light of day. Former programmer Paul Byford describes it as a puzzle game where the "cursor was a disembodied hand and you made different gestures to complete tasks" such as punching rocks and turning keys.
The Video Game History Foundation is now trying to secure funding from supporters to acquire both of these NES cartridges. Founder and co-director Frank Cifaldi thinks the sale of these cartridges on eBay could be well into the thousands. If you would like to help, his Direct Messages are open on Twitter.
"I don't know what price to expect on these but in my experience we are in the thousands here. If you've got the cash to spare and want to see these, my DMs are open. We can also discuss tax-deductible options if you're in the U.S. and want to donate to VGHF for this purpose."
We'll keep an eye out for the sale price.
[source twitter.com, via kotaku.com.au]
Comments 16
Might buy them myself for my collection
This is definitely great, but I'm not bothered about preserving demos and unreleased games.
Is it not more cost efficient to get the Japanese Napoleon game and translate it?
They're sitting on eBay gold!
Might throw in a lowball offer š
Here is a link to the sale of the Rare Power Glove game: https://www.ebay.com/itm/134272604161
I can't find the other one...
@Clyde_Radcliffe
https://www.ebay.com/itm/134272606089?hash=item1f43455f89:g:VbQAAOSw1XpjQMJS
It's the same seller for both items.
@nocdaes perhaps it is more cost effective but depending on who translates a game they are potentially giving up that time in many unpaid man hours and if an English version would be available to be dumped they can work on translating something doesn't have that option.
The Rare prototype is already at over $3,000 in bids. I bet the programmer will be happy to make some money off it!
@Zenszulu Yes, that's true. It's almost as if the best solution all round is for the person selling it to dump it... !
You know what unreleased nes game would be great to have, Ultimate Journey
"From the developers of Deady Tower". Enough for me.
What would really be a nice little hustle is if this foundation actually already owns the games, but they just setup a second account to auction them off with the intention of "buying" them themselves. So basically they could buy the games for a couple hundred dollars, auction them to themselves for several thousand, and then get the whole community to pay for it. Like what happens if they don't win the auction? Do they return the money to people? Idk, just asking people for the money to pay for these feels super shady.
@nocdaes It would be more cost-effective, but that's not the point.
Surely Frank would like to preserve the localization that Broderbund produced.
@hypercoyote Knowing Frank Cifaldi, I'm sure it would at least go into funding for other rare video games or related merchandise for preservation. (such as magazines or marketing material)
the napoleon game was released on the famicom. so its not that big of a deal if its just a English port. I actually have a flyer for the Japanese release, because I think the artwork is comical. haha
its not like these games are like a bio force ape cart release or Dota Kun. and I mean who actually cares about a power glove game other than to be completist? haha
Iād like to offer up a little clarification. Iām the designer of SCANNER, and Super Glove Ball for the NES. The Scanner cart that somebody now has on ebay is a technology demo I put together with RARE to drum up retailer interest at the Consumer Electronics Show (or āCESā, where we showed our games before there was E3). Itās not a gameplay demo, and hereās why:
To get Mattel to give me the green light so that I could hire RARE to make the actual game, I had to demonstrate retailer interest. To do this, I put together a tech demo, and an animation that demonstrated intended gameplay. Putting together a simple gameplay animation takes little effort compared to the substantial effort it takes to program gameplay on the NES.
Programmer Paul Byfordās description that you mention is a bit off. Paulās describing another game I was working on called āManipulatorā! btw, Paul was also programmer on Super Glove Ball, which was actually completed and released. The trouble was, Glove Ball wasnāt released until a full year after the Power Glove. By the time 1990-1 rolled around, anything to do with the Power Glove was poison. The Glove earned this reputation because for the first year it was out, there were no games that were specifically designed for it; it sucked with āregularā games. Mattel only gave me the green-light for Glove Ball when the Gloveās sales started to fall. Pretty stupid huh!? If Super Glove Ball was released at the same time the Glove launched, as I proposed, the Glove might have done a little better.
So all the games I had in various stages of development were cancelled when the Glove became retail-poison.
@superbigN : further clarification: by "somebody" I mean it's my wife who has it on ebay. We found the cart recently when cleaning out the garage.
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