Over the course of the '90s, Sega and Nintendo were obviously direct competitors - we've seen this documented in texts like the 'Console Wars' by Blake J. Harris. Despite this, it seems there was some rather incredibly weird stuff going on behind the scenes at one of these video game companies - so weird actually, that it was "borrowing" its rival's mascots...
Sega, in particular, apparently had a thing for Luigi from Nintendo's Super Mario series. It all stems from a recently discovered prototype of the Dreamcast title Sega GT, which is part of "Project Deluge" from The Hidden Palace. It includes 135 Dreamcast prototypes and 349 Xbox OG prototypes ranging from unreleased games, unreleased ports, tech demos, early builds, localisation prototypes, debug builds and more.
In the prototype of Sega GT - a build that has never been accessible to fans until now, a model of Luigi has apparently been discovered in a secret race within the game - posing as the starter with a flag. If that's not already got you wondering what's going on here, there's also a funny-looking map, and the race is titled "sonygt2" - likely a reference to the 1999 PlayStation title Gran Turismo 2, which was released just a few months before Sega's own sim racer.
Nobody is really sure what to make of this at the time of writing, as Luigi is (and always has been) Nintendo's intellectual property. It's likely some sort of joke or perhaps he was even a placeholder - but it's certainly there and we're guessing this was never intended to be shown outside the walls of Sega.
Sega GT was co-developed by Wow Entertainment (Sega AM1) and TOSE - known for its close ties with Nintendo platforms since the '80s. TOSE is also behind series like Game & Watch Gallery and The Legendary Starfy, and more recently some Nintendo-published Switch titles - so perhaps it had something to do with this odd inclusion of Luigi in Sega GT's prototype.
So, there you have it - Luigi is real and it turns out he's been hiding away inside Sega GT on the Dreamcast all along.
[source twitter.com]
Comments 22
Man, that's some epic Project Deluge content. But remember. L was already real in SM64. His spirit probably just got leaked in Sega GT, and now they found the corpse.
Kind of looks like the N64 Mario Party Luigi face he has there.
I think Luigi was just so upset about being left out of Mario 64 that he went over to Sega to try to forge his own path. If it wasn't for the precarious position Sega was in, perhaps Luigi could have starred in his own "Mario 64 killer" on the Dreamcast. And no, none of that is serious.
This is not luigi. he has no L! This is the fabled lost sega hero ooijee
I think this was back in the early 2000s when Sonic invited Luigi to his house for a few beers and they got drunk and filmed themselves doing outrageous things. This must be part of that long lost footage.
So this is why Dreamcast failed - a competition's agent infiltrated the domain.
@Kienda Sonic eventually woke up in a weird remote village, dealing with a massive hangover and a looney human who kept trying to purchase clothes from him.
It's a reminder that even the people making games for a given system are people too. Working for Sega or Sony or Nintendo doesn't mean you only play Sega or Sony or Nintendo games.
This was probably just some game devs having fun with their jobs. I don't see anything wrong with that.
Why did he look like he was jack Luigi from that peanutbutter gamer video for a sec lol.
Reminds me a little of Homer and Bart in Crash Bash.
A decade earlier Sega made Mario the first boss on Alex Kidd in Shinobi World. Good thing they remembered to patch him out before shipping.
its luigis evil clone like mario has wario lol
Experimental SEGA clone of Luigi? Maybe a spy to infiltrate Ninty at the time? Testing him out using SEGA GT?
Interesting.
You got to wonder what is the story behind this one
Luigi really should have taken the Dreamcast prototype of Sega GT out for dinner first.
I see Luigi wherever I go.
I've been working on that with a team of shrinks.
Sonygt2 and luigi lol. They testing some weird stuff.
Ah, there he was all that time.
That red dot as the map marker looks like a <3
My guess is a placeholder using an employee's fan made model of Luigi he just had laying around.
So, why does the map of the track look like that? Is it the silhouette of a certain character? Maybe from another game or an anime?
A Nintendo Ninja in Sega's development team!
Are you guys sure this is luigi? I mean, it could just be a design coincidence!
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