🕹️ Unique collection of 200+ Nintendo game prototypes could be lost forever
May 2025. A story recently broke that is still unresolved and has the entire gaming community worried.
At stake are more than 200 unique beta cartridges and development kits for Nintendo handhelds including the GBA, DS, DSi, and 3DS, many containing early or completely unreleased versions of well-known games. Their preservation is now under serious threat, and a fight is underway to keep this priceless archive from disappearing forever.
🔍 What's in the collection?
The prototypes include:
- Sonic Colors (DS beta)
- Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games
- Sonic Chronicles
- Sega All-Stars Racing
- and many others, including early builds, technical tests, and unannounced projects.
These cartridges have major historical value: they contain material that could help fill in the history of game development and studios in the 2000s.
🧩 Why is it at risk?
The collection was originally supposed to be purchased and digitized by the Video Game Preservation Museum (VGPM) — a nonprofit organization specializing in video-game preservation. They offered the seller more than £25,000 for the full lot.
But the deal fell apart at the last moment.
🗣️ “Someone went and told the seller that all of this was worth more than we had offered, specifically to derail the sale to us. Then they also convinced him that letting us dump the cartridges would reduce their value.”
The intervention of a third party effectively undermined the seller's trust and stopped the process of transferring the material into safe hands.
💰 Attempt to save it
VGPM together with Obscure Gamers announced an urgent fundraiser.
Important: the £5,000 deposit is not the full price of the collection. It is only the first step needed to temporarily take the cartridges off the market, buy time, and begin the main fundraising effort.
Their tweet states this directly:
🗣️ «To save confusion, the £5000 deposit is to take the carts off the market and not the full cost, this is just step 1. And to enable us to fund raise the rest, for release via @HiddenPalaceOrg.»
The final goal is to raise the full amount and release the data through @HiddenPalaceOrg — a respected organization that publishes game prototypes for public access.
🌍 Where is the seller?
The exact location has not been disclosed. The seller is believed to be somewhere in Europe, possibly the United Kingdom, since contact was handled through the UK side, but this has not been confirmed.
❓ How did it end?
As of May 18, 2025, the collection's fate remained uncertain. It was unclear whether the deposit had been paid or whether any of the cartridges had been secured.
The community hopes that at least some of the items can be purchased and digitized before they disappear into private collections.