US NES Earthbound Prototype Discovered

[+swlovinist]

You just never know what you will find at a yard sale. Confirmed by several collectors including myself in person. 100 percent Legit.

 

[CPUWIZ]

I love you man. I really do.

[SlidellMan]

The question is "does it still work?"

[+swlovinist]

Yes, I tested it before and after we did the video. Pretty cool it has the original save on it still functional.

[atarilovesyou]

ROM Dumpy McDumperson Honestly, I've never played Earthbound on the SNES but have heard all about this game...so I look forward to playing it on my NES in some way, some day!

[Trebor]

Curious of any difference(s) from the others that exist.


Yours may be where Prototype #4 ended up, or at least it appears similar to it:

"Prototype #4 was in a cut open Zelda case (it probably never had a cart of its own) and did not have labels on the EPROMS, which is dangerous because prolonged exposure to UV rays (from sunlight or something else) will erase the ROM data inside. Hopefully the current owner has covered them up. The EPROMS were also a different manufacturer than jollerancher’s boards, and they were mounted on DIP sockets instead of soldered right on the board."

Thankfully someone was wise enough to cover up the EPROMs.

 

Other notes regarding Prototype #4:

"In 2009, Matt Alderman, a former Nintendo Power game play counselor, posted a prototype on eBay. He had been given the opportunity to play through the game before it was finished, just before the game was scrapped. After much harrassment and even having his account flagged by lamers, he sold it offline to an unknown party. This cart’s current whereabouts are unknown."

ROM Dumpy McDumperson Honestly, I've never played Earthbound on the SNES but have heard all about this game...so I look forward to playing it on my NES in some way, some day!

An NES Earthbound ROM has been out in the wild for quite sometime now.

[+swlovinist]

Curious of any difference(s) from the others that exist.

 

Yours may be where Prototype #4 ended up, or at least it appears similar to it:

 

"Prototype #4 was in a cut open Zelda case (it probably never had a cart of its own) and did not have labels on the EPROMS, which is dangerous because prolonged exposure to UV rays (from sunlight or something else) will erase the ROM data inside. Hopefully the current owner has covered them up. The EPROMS were also a different manufacturer than jollerancher’s boards, and they were mounted on DIP sockets instead of soldered right on the board."

 

Thankfully someone was wise enough to cover up the EPROMs.

 

Other notes regarding Prototype #4:

"In 2009, Matt Alderman, a former Nintendo Power game play counselor, posted a prototype on eBay. He had been given the opportunity to play through the game before it was finished, just before the game was scrapped. After much harrassment and even having his account flagged by lamers, he sold it offline to an unknown party. This cart’s current whereabouts are unknown."

 

 

An NES Earthbound ROM has been out in the wild for quite sometime now.

The rom has been dumped and appears to not be different than the previous prototype. Thank you for posting this info.

[+GoldLeader]

That is Awesome!

[TheTIGuy]

Well, after playing it on sNes a long while back (bought the gba multicart so i could legally do this lol) i now HAVE TO get an NES so i can play this don't I?

[Tanooki]

If I'm reading that right that stuff up there just said that it's no different than the one already out there for years now that crooks have been flashing onto chips and killing old NES carts for as a donor for years. This isn't some new revelation other than a missing prototype that was known turned up again and in the most annoying of spaces -- a cheapo yard sale pick up. Big difference compared to what all those people combined chipped in to buy the one stolen from Nintendo like 10+ years ago. There's no reason to just run out now and buy a NES as it's not some different copy. Depending what you care to go about with it tehre's 'Earthbound (Beginnings)' from Nintendo on 2 of their systems, and then you have the original ripped off one floating around in ROM format you can use on whatever device of your choosing.

 

It's cool to see this lost one turn up though.

[Supergun]

...uh...yeah...what he said.

 

If this was NES Sim City, then it would be big.

[Tanooki]

Now that's something I could get behind big time, very big. The fact that Nintendo in their dying days of their magazine before handing it off to the Future One trolls who mocked NIntendo in their own mag they had an article on lost old relics and trolled a finished prototype cart of Sim City NES and showed some pictures in that issue too. Bastards. >:\ I don't want to see more stuff stolen from their archives, but I wouldn't feel any issue having a copy made if that one got out, even if it probably is a dupe of the SNES release. I've wanted a crack at that one for as long as it was first mentioned side by side with Earthbound NES in the NP magazine on the same issue. I love original Sim City and 2000 too, got a bit convoluted and bloated since.

[+swlovinist]

I dont know what the prototype ended up selling for(high bidder did not pay), but supposedly was an offer from Japan for over 8K. Somebody cared about having this prototype in their collection.