Classic Nintendo Source Code And Prototypes Allegedly Leaked

I saw MVG's video about this this morning. How does this kind of thing happen? Seems like either someone hacked Nintendo's internal servers somehow, or they had a break in and someone stole some physical data storage.

I can't think of a way this information got out through legitimate means.

So many cool findings coming out and still yet to be seen

What I find more interesting is the behind the scenes look we have. We rarely get to see material like this from Nintendo.

This is like Christmas morning to me

Probably the most startling thing was that random human in Starfox 2, didn't see that coming.

I love this stuff. As an amateur video game "archaeologist" (meaning nothing more than being interested in video games history and any detail about the creation of any title). This is pretty nice.

I do like stuff like this, it’s interesting to see the different ideas that don’t pan out for whatever reason. I wish Nintendo were more forthcoming with this stuff, they don’t have to be so uptight in this day and age.

Nice to see all this beta content still survives, I'd love to see behind the scene books of Nintendo games for every era some day!

@nessisonett
I haven't seen many companies reveal unknown beta content from the 8/16 bit era, only thing that I can think on the top of my head is the Konami Anniversary Compilation bonus books.

Would be neat to see it more often.

Probably dubiously legal, but historically awesome and morally harmless after this much time

As a retrogamer I’m loving this, so interesting!

@echoplex Oh yeah, for sure, just look at the Zelda books like Hyrule Historia. Fans would lap this stuff up if it was collated in a nice hardcover encyclopaedia.

I too love this stuff, very interesting. Admittedly hope to get to play that Yoshi's Island prototype!

That prototype of Blargg reminds me of a toy from when I was a child, it was a pole with an animal head on one end and a trigger on the other, which made the mouth open and close!

Yoshi's island could have been more Sabrewulf or Adventure island, based on the shown character. Just a little thought.

Interesting stuff, even if it is stolen (that's not good of course).

How do these things leak, why would anyone steal this stuff xx

Zelda 3!?!? I really want to know more about that one.

It’s cannon! Human! Jumping Link 3!

lol time for a new user icon

There are also files about a Pokemon MMO game made by iQue in 2004 based on Fire Red/Leaf Green.
Anyway, Nintendo servers were hacked twice during the past years (do you remember the Spaceworld demos?) so I think this "leak" comes from there

Ah man, I liked Donkey Kong 3 and really just view the guy in Super Donkey as Stanley the Bug Man

Incredible. So cool to see this stuff. Nintendo gonna be M A D

I'm more surprised by the fact that Nintendo were able to keep the source code for these games. Most companies have lost the source code for games from the 90s and before. I mean at this point they could have made ports of their classic games rather than emulate them. I'd imagine the source code of TLOZ 3 was used for the gba port then.

@Kabloop This. From big decisions like not having a human in SF2 (SO JARRING) to small choices like using Toadies instead of Flying Snifits or Fly Guys, this is just evidence that the decision-making process during the SNES days was a finely-honed machine.

Now if only we could get leaks of the beta of Super Mario 64 and Zelda OoT, and the entire unfinished canceled game of EarthBound 64, that is what i dream of finally getting to experience someday before I die of old age.

I also wish the beta of Mario Kart 64 would get leaked just to see MagiKoopa in his glory days before he got sent to the recycle bin.

Wow, I know Zelda 3 was planned for the NES at first, but I always thought they never got very far past the planning stages before development shifted to the SNES and A Link to the Past entered production.

But to see some proof that that version once existed is amazing.

Also, looking at these sprites, were they planning to make Zelda 3 just like Link's Adventure in terms of gameplay?

@Kabloop Not everything is crap though. An old version of the training music in Yoshi's Island was found for example, which is a bit nicer than what was used in the final game (Which is basically just the first 10 seconds looped).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM62qijSPWs

I seriously wonder why the full song was cut...

Cool leaks!!! I predict a Direct coming sooooon...

Are they sure that's a prototype for DK? Doesn't it look more like the monkeys from Yoshi's Island? Obviously I don't have access to the source code and info on what game it's from, but that looks like the could have added a barrel-rolling ape to Yoshi's Island

On one hand, I find this information really neat from both my gaming and my "I like history" perspectives. I love insights into early development phases and what could have been.

On the other, I can't agree with HOW this information was obtained. Yes, Nintendo could easily market this into more artbooks, like some of the Zelda collections. But the fact is, they haven't chosen to reveal these cut items for their intellectual properties.

@Kabloop "I never said anything about the historical angle. Just the content itself - which is crap."

But you said this before: "everyone keeps making up excuses for how "omg awesome" it is?" These people are talking about the historical angle of this, not necessarily the content itself. No one is pretending everything shown here is great, we just like seeing this kind of stuff.

Heard there's a SGI Indy proto for MK64 too

@mystman12 memory boss. NES, SNES and N64 games had to be fitted onto notoriously small sizes for their eras.

So music, levels, ideas, graphics, mechanics they didn't have memory for got chopped.

Kinda breaks my heart a little to be honest. But it’s cool to see. No harm in me taking a quick glance and not reading too much into it, right? I won’t click any links above to support anyone but I see what’s above up there. Neat. Ok so Nintendo, time to lock that sh*t down better!

It's incredible really. So much stuff. People found the sprite of Mario Kart before it was even Mario Themed (the random person Miyamoto commmented)

However indeed, how this was obtained is not good.

I'll wait for sources to compile and catalog everything. From an historical and preservation standpoint, this is huge.

@Bomberman64 Nintendo keeps everything whereas Sega deleted everything and Atari threw it in the dumpsters behind their offices

While it's not cool how this stuff was obtained, it is cool to see, from a historical standpoint. Seeing stuff like this really lets you see how the design process went.

@nessisonett There's a site devoted to this stuff, if you've never seen and interested in more. It's called The Cutting Room floor (tcrf.net) and they have a LOT of stuff like this archived there from pretty well every system.

Let get those Nintendo PlayStation demos and files. All those N64DD games that never came out or came as totally different games. Some early Chrono Trigger and Secret of Mana would really make my day.

wow this is all cool did not know about any of it. (I do now)

Well great Nintendo, people got so tired of waiting for reveals that they decided to find out for themselves... XD

@Caryslan That's gotta be SNES, not NES. Too many colors. NES only allows 3 colors per sprite (plus transparent).
Would be interesting to see more of the NES proto, though. Same with SMW.

This is very fascinating. Not only the tilesets showing gradual development and rejected ideas, but the freakin C++ and assembly source code 😵

People forget how much of a jerk Nintendo was in the 90s. They wouldn't share any technical details/manuals with 3rd party developers - especially those outside Japan. Those developers had to figure out almost everything from scratch, with rarely any assistance from Nintendo.

If karma existed, this is what it looks like Nintendo 🙄

On the other hand, I don't agree with people going through game patches and leaking future updates/DLC.

@Menardi That's happened now. A bunch of N64 games got their source code leaked today, at least from the IQue versions. Here's a video about it: https://youtu.be/eg6a6ITZ_Ic

I take it all the people in those tweets were not the people that stole these images from Nintendo?

When I get the dodgy DVD's from the pub the last thing I do is advertise online that I have them, obviously the law must be different for digital stolen property. I also don't like fan art/games which will no doubt use these things, and then be reported on here which annoys me even more.