Would you like to see new N64 and NES games?

[Doonzmore]

While many of might be rolling your eyes at the thought, read on and discover how this dream may become a reality. It's time to close your eyes and imagine. Here is a list of games, read closley....


Taz Express (N64)
40 Winks (N64)
Sea Doo Hydrocross (N64)
Carnival (N64)
Robotech (N64)
Mr. Gimmick (NES)

All these games have at least 1 thing in common....
they were all cancelled (in the U.S that is)

I had recieved this E-mail from a very little known company known as SongBird Productions. This company has made numerous Atari Jaguar and Atari Lynx games in the past and we all know how dead that system is. Anywho, here is what they had to say:


"Thanks for the email. Producing new games for other systems such as the N64 might be possible, but only if the proper rights are secured for such games.Thus a game like Taz Express seems an unlikely candidate, since rights wouldneed to be negotiated with WB. I haven't heard of 40 Winks,so I don't know who might be involved for licensing.

Songbird has built numerous Jaguar carts over the years, and if there wer
licensed games available and a proven market of a few hundred fans, it would be possible to do new N64 games, too."

With your help, visit http://songbird-productions.com/ E-mail the company asking them to produce cancelled N64 and NES games and make this dream become a reality.

However,
With this being said, it would be wise to stick to Nes and N64 games for now because we don't want to bombard the company with various requests so they choose not to produce the fallen N64 and NES games.
Games such as Earthbound have absolutly no chance due to the fact that Nintendo pretty much has the rights to it and would probably not lend over the rights so its best to stick to 3rd party developed games.

It is time that we gamers unite and perhaps start a dream in the making.
If anyone has any questions regard to this post let know right away so we can get this dream underway!

Spread the word....
DO YOUR PART

There is no doubt in my mind that i'll get negative feedback about this.

[YoshiM]

Would be interesting. Projects like this are cropping up here and there with others like Good Deal Games. Songbird has been around for awhile and have done some amazing things with the Lynx and Jaguar so them possibly doing a NES or an N64 shouldn't be too big of a stretch for them.

[tholly]

wow....i would be very interested to see something like that become a reality

[Doonzmore]

I have recieved more news from Songbird Productions, i sent them an E-mail asking this question...

To aquire these Liscenses, would u need to get the license from the
publisher or the developer?

Many of these games were released in other parts of the world so would it be possible to convert them into a U.S format?

And here is what they had to say....

"One or more companies will hold rights to the IP (Intellectual Property)
associated with the game: the actual developer who produced the game, and anylicensed property used in the game (e.g. Disney characters, Star Wars, names ofatheletes, and so on).

I have no information on N64 compatibility issues from around the world, so no idea if games released in other regions would be easy, difficult, or impossible to release for the USA from a technical perspective."

If anyone here needs any info on how to contact the company then just let me know, and together...WE WILL PREVAIL.

P.S- a list of some more cancelled N64 and Nes games would be greatly appreciated.

[Crush Crawfish]

I would love to see those N64 and NES games released, especially Mr. Gimmick.

[SMB]

I would really like to see SongBird Productions make some new Virtual Boy Games

[Doonzmore]

All i ask of my fellow roundtable members is to simply E-Mail Songbird Productions stating that you would like to see some N64 and Nes games produced. This is not a scheme, there is absolutly no money invovled in trying to get Songbird Productions to produce these games.

Here is a list of some possible canned N64 canidates:

40 Winks
Airboardin USA
Carnivale
Caesars Palace
DethKarz
Dragon Sword
Freak Boy
Harrier 2001
Hype The Time Quest
Jest
Legend of the river king
Blades of Steel 2000
Nightmare Creatures 2
O.D.T
Sea-Doo Hydrocross
Rev Limit
Spooky
Test Drive Rally
Sydney 2000
Roswell Conspiracies
Viewpoint 2064
War: Final Assault
Wild Waters
X-Men

I aquire the roundtables help more than ever and every E-mail will get us one step closer. THIS IS OUR TIME!

[adaml]

Songbird Productions...isn't that Carl Forhan?? I *think* I sold him a 7800 Pete Rose Baseball back in the 90's. I would think he would be more than "a little known" around these parts.

[Kepone]

I'd prefer to see newer NES games than N64 games.

Especially if anyone figures out how to homebrew for NES on a wider scale.

[adaml]

http://www.bobrost.com/nes/games.php

[Kepone]

Nice link there. I had never seen those games before!

[Jorpho]

Weren't most of those canned N64 games released on other systems?

[Qixmaster]

sack of flour... now that's what i'm talkin' 'bout 8-)

[Leo_A]

A lot of those games like Harrier were never even finished.

[Nesmaster]

im totally for this. id love to see some nes games that didnt hit the US get a US release once and for all

[MarioAllStar2600]

If blades of steel 2000 was released I would be the happiest man in the world. You dont even understand. :-P But some of those nes games are weird.
http://www.bobrost.com/nes/games/sof_boxfront.jpg
:hmm:

[fishsandwich]

AirBoardin' USA was released in Japan as something else and got to the final review stage for the U.S... EGM gave it an official review during the N64 era. I think it might have gotten an average score of below a 2. Here's a blurb from IGN...

AirBoardin' USA a Very Ironic Name
AirBoardin' USA denied American release. Terminated. Vaporized. Killed. Cancelled. Trashed. Finally.

November 09, 2000 - IGN64 would like to announce that AirBoardin' USA has been cancelled for Nintendo 64 release. This horrific project, released in Japan more than two years ago, has been slithering around US release lists ever since. But no more! As if officially admitting defeat, AirBoardin' has removed its two-year stay on Electronics Boutique's release-lists once and for all, and can now be assumed officially dead for an American debut.

The title, originally developed by Human Entertainment, was based around futuristic hover-boarding, and was brought to life with dazzlingly blurry first-generation graphics and a sloppy control scheme. We knew it would never come to the US, the game's PR company knew it would never ship here, and most N64 gamers knew it would never arrive stateside too. But apparently nobody told AirBoardin', because the stupid cart continued to show up on release lists, defying all odds and laughing in our faces.
Now we must say goodbye forever. Dearest AirBoardin', we will remember you always... as one of the poorest Nintendo 64 games. And we will miss your company on coming US release lists. Now be gone, foul beast!

I looked at IGN.com for a lot of these games... check it out. Just type in the game of the game and they will give you info, even screenshots, of a lot of these games.

I want Viewpoint 2064. Spooky looks good, too. Heck, almost all look intriging.

[kainemaxwell]

I especially want to see Robotech come back.

[captain nintendo]

I especially want to see Robotech come back.
*drools*

Me too :D

[Doonzmore]

Just out of curiousity, has anyone E-Mailed them yet?

[chadtower]

I have. I told them outright I would buy any N64 games they produce.

[Ze_ro]

Wouldn't it be awfully expensive to produce N64 cartridges? I mean hell, here in Canada, some of the mass-produced commercial ones were selling for $100 even. Homebrew is great, but I imagine even if Songbird could pull this off, the releases are going to be rather pricey!

--Zero

[TheRedEye]

It wasn't long ago that Sunsoft re-released Gimmick! in a compilation pack. So if you want Mr. Gimmick released on the NES, you're probably looking at tens of thousands in licensing fees.

[Doonzmore]

Songbird Productions...isn't that Carl Forhan?? I *think* I sold him a 7800 Pete Rose Baseball back in the 90's. I would think he would be more than "a little known" around these parts.

It most certainly is, the 2 E-mail responses i posted earlier were both from him.

For the people who have recently E-mail Songbird, could you please post there replies. Thanks

[Kroogah]

TheRedEye brings up a good point. If you want Mr. Gimmick here you go:

http://www.ncsxshop.com/cgi-bin/shop/SLPS-03486.html

[ddockery]

I don't see N64 games being any more expensive to produce than the Jag carts they already do, but I'm basing that on nothing really. Most of the games listed would have liscensing issues, especially Robotech.

[Jorpho]

Even the pirates (http://assembler.roarvgm.com/Black_market/Grey_N64/grey_n64.html) decided producing N64 carts was too expensive.

There's a beta ROM of Robotech available, isn't there?

[Songbird]

Hi, everybody,

I thought I should post here directly. Thanks for the emails from a few of you who are interested in new games for Nintendo systems such as the N64.

I'd like to stress that in the above emails which were quoted in this thread, I only say it could be possible to publish new games, if game source code and/or ROMs are found and if the companies were willing to license and if several hundred fans responded to such an offer. Those are some big "if's".

Games which require license from Marvel or Disney or LucasArts or NFL or similar big-name companies are unlikely to be published. Games which were produced by smaller, independent companies stand a better chance of seeing the light of day. At least, this has been my experience in licensing Jaguar and Lynx games.

I don't have information on the costs to build N64 carts, but again, using the Jaguar as a model, I would think it would be feasible. No idea how that would translate to a retail price, but I doubt new N64 games would be any cheaper than a 4MB Jaguar game (I sell Skyhammer for $80). It all depends on the costs of buying chips, doing new PCBs, buying or producing cart shells, print costs, etc. So fans would really have to want these games to make it happen.

I stay quite busy as you could imagine just working on Lynx and Jaguar games for Atari fans. Maybe some day, if I find some more time, I could look into what happened to some of these games.

And yes, I did buy a 7800 Pete Rose from somebody a few years back. ;)

[Doonzmore]

Well with the 20th year of Nintendo around the corner, it's the perfect time. :D

[Doonzmore]

Well its best that i inform everyone about this now because someone would have found out eventually.

I had sent an E-mail to Good Deal Games asking this question:

Me and my fellow gamers were curious if a your company would be capable of
producing games such as 40 Winks (N64), Taz Express (N64) or Mr. Gimmick
(NES)?

All of these games were released in other country's such as Europe, would
be possible to convert them over to an american format?

And here is GDG reply....

"Sorry, unlike Sega, Nintendo is not willing to work with us and threatens us
with legal action if we release titles for any of their platforms. As a
result, GDG cannot support Nintendo consoles. As a matter of fact, we
actually had a NES and N64 game in production a few years ago, which we
halted when they refused to be cooperative...."

While many of you might think of this as "Game Over" i think of it as only a minor setback and the difficutly has simply been raised.

I then sent an E-mail to Nintendo asking this question:

Me and many of my fellow gamers and friends are dissapointed that you won't
allow company's such as Songbird Productions and Good Deal Games to produce games for your Nintendo and N64 consoles such as Mr. Gimmick, Taz Express, and 40 Winks. What is the real motive or good purpose behind all this?


I had read mutiple reviews and previews in mags for these games and i was
looking to there release until the company cancelled them for some reason or
another, they were however released in Europe and i even imported Taz
Express from Australlia and ordered about 50$ worth of converters until i
found out that there is no known method of playing Pal games on a U.S
console. Also, Mr. Gimmick is one of the hardest games to find out in Europe
not giving gamers the chance to experiance these titles first hand.
If you allowed Songbird and Good Deal Games to resurect these games then me and my fellow game friends would surley love to see this become a reallity.
Please write back soon regarding this E-Mail.

And here is the crappy response they sent me:

"While the N64 was a huge success, we are now focusing on new games for the Nintendo GameCube and the Game Boy Advance/Game Boy Advance SP,as there is presently a higher demand for these games.

The N64 was actively supported for over five years with some of the most populargames in video game history. However, as the video game industry evolved, players began demanding games that were beyond the capabilities of the N64, and based on demand, stores were ordering less and less N64 product, in favor of the latest products with the newest technology.

While N64 games are no longer being shipped to stores, there have been nearly 300 games released for this system, so there are plenty of great titles to play. We're confident that you can find great games both brand new and used through the second-hand market that you haven't played yet.

For help finding stores that may have a larger selection of N64 titles to choose
from, head to our web site at www.nintendo.com and enter the "Customer Service"area (you'll find a link to this section of our site at the bottom of our main page). Next, go to the "Where to Buy" section and then click on the "Older Systems, Games, and Accessories" link.
Thanks for your email and good luck with all your games!"

Nintendo of America Inc.
Kurt Wagner


While they do bring a good point ot the table, it would seem that they never truly answered my question. A new task is at hand, i will stand by the operation and continue to get gamers to now get Nintendo to allow these games to be revived.

[Doonzmore]

Well i'm not positive that everyone will join me on this, but over the last month I have begun a petition and with school starting i have been able to obtain over 200 signatures so far as well as getting an article on this very subject printed in our school news paper. Yes, that number is quite low but i felt that I should come here asking for signatures because i know there are many retro gamers on this site. This will prove to Nintendo that we are behind them and will support them if they allow these games to get a release.

If there is any questions or concerns about this petition then simply let me know.

This is far from over.

[Jorpho]

There was a much greater effort to get Mother 1 (Earthbound Zero) released on the GBC... And Nintendo didn't even bother bringing over the GBA version years after the petition was submitted. (You can still read the full story on some Earthbound fan sites, I think.)

What you are proposing would seem to be an even less likely possibilty.

[rbudrick]

http://www.ncsxshop.com/cgi-bin/shop/SLPS-03486.html

There's TWO games on that disk?! What the hell kind of compilation is that? It also indicates Sunsoft released severalof these. What others were there and with what games? Are they NES emulations or are they remakes worth playing?


And as for Nintendo halting you from producing a third party game, I don't see how they could considering they don't hold the licensing rights to them...could someone clarify this?

-Rob

[Doonzmore]

What you are proposing would seem to be an even less likely possibilty.


You are not the first to tell me that one, if we gamers were to team up however then we just might pull this one off. If we don't then these games will remain in the shadows forever.

[DDCecil]

http://www.ncsxshop.com/cgi-bin/shop/SLPS-03486.html

There's TWO games on that disk?! What the hell kind of compilation is that? It also indicates Sunsoft released severalof these. What others were there and with what games? Are they NES emulations or are they remakes worth playing?
-Rob

I have Vol. 4 (Ripple Island and Blaster Master) and 5 (Journey to Silius and Uforia). they are exactly like the NES counterparts (Except Journey to Silius has a new main character). There are a couple of bonuses like a Quiz Game and a Sound Test. The music during the actual games are horrible, though if you load up the sound test, they sound just fine.

[Doonzmore]

Is there anyone out there that will support this petition? It would be greatly appreciated.

[goatdan]

I hate to tell you this but I feel as if I might lend a more experienced perspective...

If you don't know me, "Hi." My name is Dan Loosen. Many people recognized me from the GOAT Store, LLC and / or the Midwest Gaming Classic. These two things have gotten me some decent contacts within the gaming industry.

On top of that, the GOAT Store, LLC has recently developed a new division called "GOAT Store Publishing." To date, we have produced three Dreamcast games, although two have been mired in delays because of problems with a pressing company. Those games should be released within the next month, however.

When we first started this publishing division, we had to figure out a lot of things to measure the level of risk against reward. We actually looked into every system we could possibly release games for, and have turned pretty much our entire attention to the Dreamcast. We looked very long into NES publishing though, and both Gary and I decided that we would never pursue it. Here is why:

First off, the Dreamcast was legally reverse engineered to play games. A group of programmers created their own coding environment named KallistiOS which allows them to easily create their own games. The environment is open source.

The NES and for that matter, the N64 have had no such thing done. While the legality of reverse engineering a system has been proven in court (see Sega Vs. Accolade), the legality of overcoming a system by copying proprietary materical is not (see Nintendo vs. Tengen). While it is possibly to emulate the systems in question, legally reverse engineering them to be able to play games would be an extremely slippery slope.

If the GOAT Store -- and it could just as easily be Songbird Productions or Good Deal Games, who are both awesome people and companies too -- were to release a game for one of these systems, the only legal way that we could do so is to go through Nintendo. Nintendo wants no part of new games, as Michael of Good Deal Games outlined to you in his response. Nintendo may still be willing to grant official licenses for N64 games, but you would be talking at the minimum tens of thousands of dollars for one of those. Even if 1000 people were to purchase the game, a $10,000 license would be $10.00 per copy -- and that doesn't include the material, the licensing or anything else.

Secondly, and because of the first fact, companies that made these games will simply not be willing to work with you. Nintendo would be extremely angry and could do things to stop them. Nintendo would sue them for starters.

When you are on other fronts that are legal, developers are willing to work with you. Both Songbird and Good Deal Games productions have been made possible by companies willing to work with them to bring their projects to completion. Sadly, this response would be extremely hard to obtain.

Thirdly, N64 games especially would be very hard to produce in quantity. The raw material for the chips is extremely costly, and if anything has gone up thanks to the fact that the N64 is no longer on the market. While NES games could probably be done relatively cheaply, N64 games would probably cost well over $75.00 per game. That is a ton of money when I can go purchase Banjo Kazooie for $8.00 or Golden Eye for $12.00 or Zelda for $12.00. I could literally have six games that were totally awesome for the system for less than the price of one new release.

For the foreseeable future, no Nintendo system will have games released for it (and, while we're at it no system with the word "Playstation" in it's title either, as was proven through the untimely demise of the completely legal Bleem!Cast discs). I wish it would be different, but that's the bottom line.

If you want any hope of this happening, you need to target Nintendo first, and you need to ask them to release the rights to program on a console into the public domain like Atari did with the Jaguar. If you can get that to occur, I think that you will find yourself swimming in a sea of awesome Nintendo carts. If not, I don't think that any producer in their right mind would risk the wrath of Nintendo... at least, I can guarantee that I wouldn't.

[Doonzmore]

Well if that is what it takes then no problem. :)

[Duncan]

Well if that is what it takes then no problem. :)

I admire your spunk, kid. Go get 'em! :)

[TRM]

The NES and for that matter, the N64 have had no such thing done. While the legality of reverse engineering a system has been proven in court (see Sega Vs. Accolade), the legality of overcoming a system by copying proprietary materical is not (see Nintendo vs. Tengen). While it is possibly to emulate the systems in question, legally reverse engineering them to be able to play games would be an extremely slippery slope.

There have been schems available for the cartridge design Color Dreams used for their Nintendo games....this should be totally legal, including the way they bypassed the NES, considering the fact that Color Dreams never had legal troubles with their games.

On another note, I know of a company that wants to produce one more NES game, however, things haven't gotten off the ground yet as far as I can tell.

[MegaDrive20XX]

you'd know what I would like to see? Zelda Master Quest in Cart Format for N64

Just like LeonK does for NES games

[Gamemaster_ca_2003]

Umm I don't mind seeing the big publishers restarting the N64 seene. Eventhough It will be manily used for releasling slightly different sports games every year and supported by a small number of other titles like they are doing with the PS1.

[Chainsaw_Charlie]

I'd like FF3 J to finally come here among other games
________
vaporizer forums (http://vaporizer.org/forum)

[SegaAges]

i wouldn't mind seeing a good capcom fighting game on 64. i know capcom has one somewhere

[goatdan]

The NES and for that matter, the N64 have had no such thing done. While the legality of reverse engineering a system has been proven in court (see Sega Vs. Accolade), the legality of overcoming a system by copying proprietary materical is not (see Nintendo vs. Tengen). While it is possibly to emulate the systems in question, legally reverse engineering them to be able to play games would be an extremely slippery slope.

There have been schems available for the cartridge design Color Dreams used for their Nintendo games....this should be totally legal, including the way they bypassed the NES, considering the fact that Color Dreams never had legal troubles with their games.

On another note, I know of a company that wants to produce one more NES game, however, things haven't gotten off the ground yet as far as I can tell.

Well, I guess that the other way to look at it would be that Nintendo could've done to Color Dreams what Sony did to Bleem to get them out of the market... keep suing them until their money runs out.

For some reason Nintendo is far more protective of it's older consoles than any other company... then again, with the GB Nintendo SP and all the GBA Nintendo carts, I suppose that they actually *are* still making new money from those old properties.

[Doonzmore]

I'm looking for a box shot for Looney Tunes Space Race for n64, i've come across it a few times in old Target ads in Gamepro magazines but i've had no luck finding a box shot for this game on the internet. Does anyone know of a website that has a box shot for this game?

[Doonzmore]

Here's some news from Good Deal games

The following is an E-mail response i recieved from GDG:

"We had a unnamed puzzle game for the NES and an Arkanoid style game for the N64."

I felt i should post this incase anyone was wondering which Nes and N64 games they had in development.

[RetroYoungen]

Wouldn't it be awfully expensive to produce N64 cartridges? I mean hell, here in Canada, some of the mass-produced commercial ones were selling for $100 even. Homebrew is great, but I imagine even if Songbird could pull this off, the releases are going to be rather pricey!

--Zero

I think that might be because of the cartidge itself. That was always the most expensive part, and if SongBird can just take the innards out of already existing carts (or ignore the actual cart altogether and do something else) then they might not be quite as pricy as you think. I don't know for sure, though.