The Satellaview represented a fascinating chapter in Nintendo's long history. The peripheral allowed Japanese players to tune in to special satellite broadcasts that distributed various forms of unique and exclusive game content to their consoles. The problem is, many of the games that were part of the Satellaview have been lost due to their temporary state; a game can only be found nowadays if it happened to be the last game played on the cartridge it was found on. Kirby's Toy Box – a collection of ten Kirby mini-games – saw broadcast in 1996, though only three of these games were eventually preserved in ROM format. It was assumed that the remaining seven were gone for good, until four more of them were just discovered.
A group of gaming preservationists were scouting around in the Ishikawa Prefecture of Japan, when they happened across a seller at an auction who happened to have these four games:
"Circular Ball" / "ぐるぐるボール"
"Cannon Ball" / "キャノンボール"
"Pachinko" / "パチンコ"
"Arrange Ball" / "アレンジボール"
The group didn't have the cash to buy them, so they asked their fans on social media for donations to help secure the games. The fans came through and the group managed to win all four games in their auctions for 85,500¥ ($813.08). The cartridges will soon be converted to ROMs that will be playable via emulators, so everyone can have an opportunity to experience this lost piece of gaming history. Truly a wonderful story, though there's still work to be done, as this means three of the ten games are still out there somewhere.
What do you think? Would you like to try these out? Do you think they'll find the last games? Drop us a comment in the section below.
[source kotaku.com]
Comments (20)
Wonderful! I've always found the entire situation around the Satellaveiw really interesting. It's great to have discovered more of them!
@Mega_Yarn_Poochy I agree this is super cool! It makes me wonder, though, if Nintendo actually has all the ROMs on a series of tapes somewhere and it's just never bothered to release them again. I know I'd be interested if they did a VC release or something.
$814 ?!
Very cool. This is what ROMs are for.
I always love it when lost games get uncovered like this. Keep up the great work, preservationists!
Kirby Pachinko?
Was it made by Konami?
@Mega_Yarn_Poochy Wholeheartedly agree, this is fantastic news for game preservation.
@NintendoVideoGa it is fashionable to make pachinko of all IPs. There are NGE pachinko on multiple systems, for example, including 8, I believe, on the DS. Yes, eight.
Nice! Might try someday (together with the Zelda titles)!
I love Kirby, but everytime I hear the word "Pachinko" I feel the need to punch the Konami logo.
And then I cry for Castlevania and Metal Gear.
OnTopic: More Kirby to the people, please!
Great effort from everyone involved, I'm really happy they won the auction this time.
Excellent news!! As others have stated, now is time for Nintendo to buy these games back (if they need to) and deliver them via eShop.
guess what folks...in 20 years or so we will have this satellaview situation all over again but on a much much greater scale. when nintendo and other companies will shut down their (then) legacy online stores and update servers there will be no way to get digital only releases, updates and DLC for the (now) current consoles.
Hope they find the other 3. If these 4 were out there then the others probably are too.
@Anti-Matter
A small price to pay for preservation.
No, really. It took $2700 to secure a prototype of Bio Force Ape on the NES.
@SmaMan
Gosh...!! $2700 was insane.
@Noelemahc I kow. I was just kidding around.
Good news to read Can't wait to try them out. I love the preservation aspect of retro gaming.
@NintendoVideoGa
lol
anyway this is pretty cool. wouldn't it be neat to havea kirby lost legends pack?
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