Glover wrote:
I think this sort of contributed to Nintendo’s high levels of caution when the DS was first announced. I remember at that year’s E3, they stressed several times that it was intended to be a “third pillar” for Nintendo’s system lineup, alongside Game Boy Advance and GameCube. It was positioned very deliberately as not necessarily being the successor to the GBA, just in case it was a tremendous flop… but, of course, that’s ancient history and the DS went on to become one of the most successful game consoles ever.The last time they had introduced a system so drastically different from its precursor really was when the Virtual Boy was launched.
A similar thing happened with the Wii, only it was with Nintendo’s name. Should still be some sources lying around, but I remember from the days of the Wii launch that Nintendo said they wanted the Wii to appeal to non-gamers so they would be de-emphasizing the inclusion of the Nintendo name on the Wii product and marketing.
Similarly, in some staff interviews I think, Nintendo has always regretted placing their name so prominently on the Virtual Boy. I know someone said they marketed it as a video game but should have instead treated it as a sort of electronic toy, because it was just so different. I think that last note is in hindsight though.
But about the Nintendo name, that’s something I find very neat with the Virtual Boy. Nintendo is printed everywhere on the Virtual Boy and its accessories. It truly was just like a SNES or Game Boy as far as Nintendo products go. Flip through a Virtual Boy game booklet, it’s cool seeing everything formatted like any other system, just with a few more “how to set up the virtual boy display” and precautions. It’s such a shame so many people disliked it. 
HP Lovethrash wrote:
Sadly I’ve wondered if the secrets would only be revealed once general interest dies down. If nobody is going crazy with anguish over these lost games, there’s no point in hiding the game to gloat. My hope is that the supposed owners would feel the urge to be the first to “donate” the ROMs. Would you rather sit on it forever or be canonized as the one who finally made the games playable to all? You can nurture a power-hungry mentality by being nice as much as you can by not giving people what they want
The problem with your idea is nobody is ever remembered for releasing their unreleased game to the public. Very seldom do written articles even include the names of people involved with the dumping of a lost game. There’s no actual glory in it, thus zero incentive for those who own these prototypes. The only real motivation is MONEY. Gathering funds to pay for the destroyed value of their prototype is what people in the know want. Yes, nearly every unreleased game prototype cart drops dramatically in value once it’s dumped.
What often happens with unreleased games is the original owner sells their cart to somebody who DOES want to preserve it online. Lots of prototypes fall into the hands of archivists simply by purchasing the cart off an auction site like eBay or sometimes Yahoo Japan Auctions, or more private means like on a forum or newsgroup.
DogP wrote:
I think 3rd party protos are more likely to be released… probably just sitting in a box somewhere, or maybe backed up by one of the programmers… not even realizing that anyone would want that stuff, or not releasing the stuff since it’s technically “owned” by the company. Oh programmers realize; apparently “N” has a hard-nosed “sue-you” attitude towards former employees. Again, what possible harm could come of letting a couple protos out? None; and plenty of good will come of it.
The actual reason Nintendo prototypes almost ever surface is because Nintendo keeps a stricter rule on their prototypes being returned and not suddenly lost. Any protos that have unfinished code on them stay within the developers’ hands, rarely do they escape. Nintendo does give out review copies to magazines but Nintendo cares a lot more to have those returned than the average 3rd party company.
For example, pre-release versions of Conker’s Bad Fur Day and Perfect Dark (N64) with some differences were recently dumped, sometime last year. Those two prototype cartridges were stolen from a trade show of some type.
I think it has more to do with Nintendo needing to protect their goods than it does a goodwill gesture for a few dozen or hundred enthusiasts.
Part of US law regarding either trademarks or copyrights (I can never remember) is that the company has to show actual effort in protecting their IP, otherwise they could lose the trademark/copyright. So, if Nintendo became blasé about releasing unreleased stuff, it could potentially do them actual harm.
Most companies hold onto unreleased prototypes simply because they are assets they own. It’s no different from old dev hardware or other obsolete items that might be lingering around. Even if the company really has no plans for using said items, having them is better than not having them. Besides, what right thinking company would just give away ROMs? Only old MS-DOS era companies that aren’t making new games, that’s who.
I’m sure they’re thrilled to have enthusiasts out there who are interested in their old system… but there’s really no good mechanism for them to “just give us” the goods.
I can assure you Nintendo is not that concerned about what people do with their old hardware. They do not sell licensed clones for one thing and they have the Virtual Console. There is zero money in any obsolete products, to them at least.
More likely beyond that is that Nintendo tends to not release a product until it meets a certain quality requirement. And if they feel that what they have on hand does not meet that requirement, the cost to build up the engineering team to finish it would probably be too great for them to consider it.
According to quite a few Nintendo sources (particularly Phil Sandhop and anyone involved with Starfox 2), the number 1 killer of unreleased Nintendo games is simply marketing. Is the market for a console drastically shrinking thus the game (Earth Bound NES) will sell poorly? Cancel the game. Will the game (Starfox 2) distract sales from an upcoming console? Cancel the game. Will the game (Earth Bound NES) cost too much to print and be too niche to sell decently? Cancel the game. Look up some older interviews, marketing is the common reason.
Speaking of stupidity, there was recently an interview with one of the team members for Superman (N64). You know, that really awful N64 game? It was originally much better, but political issues with the license holder forced the developer (Titus) to do increasingly stupid and time wasting things (like invent a virtual world so Superman doesn’t hurt real people), thus the game ended up being garbage.
Until then, Dragon Hopper & Zero Racers, etc., will just have to sit in the Nintendo Vault alongside the English release of Earthbound Zero and other games… I completely agree that it’s a shame, but it’s also more complicated than “it’d be cool if they just let one slip out here and there”.
…that’s not to say it doesn’t happen, just that it’s unlikely.
Except EarthBound “Zero” was dumped publicly in 1998 and is one of the oldest NES prototypes around. It was also just called Earth Bound (with a space), Zero was tacked on by hackers. Going by Nintendo’s official word, we have Earth Bound and EarthBound.