Possible further proof that there is an EarthBound proto. [Archive]

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Veepa

07-21-2005, 07:28 PM

I don't know if there is any doubt that there is a translated EarthBound (Mother) prototype,.. and I don't know if this little piece has been brough to the public's eye.. but I was looking through an old Nintendo Power (Issue 21, February 1991), and I came across this GPC profile...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v700/Veepa/erthbnd.jpg

So it must mean that the GPCs were given translated prototypes.. I doubt this guy understands Japanese. And he didn't call it "Mother", he called it Earth Bound.

If this has already been shown, just delete it quickly to spare me the embarassment.

jajaja

07-21-2005, 07:42 PM

I havnt seen it before atleast. The ROM of earthbound that excist. Is that the offical translation or homemade?

Veepa

07-21-2005, 07:44 PM

Like I said... it's from the February 1991 issue.. before the Super Nintendo was released..

jajaja

07-21-2005, 07:45 PM

Ye, I edited my previous post. Saw you wrote it :)

Qixmaster

07-21-2005, 11:05 PM

that's a pretty valid point right there, but maybe the guy DOES speak japanese. nice detective work though :)
-Josh

Spawnmc

07-22-2005, 02:09 AM

So first thing, I'd like to say thanks for scanning my long-lost GPC profile from the Startropics issue of Nintendo Power... I've been bidding on copies of that for months on eBay to no avail...

Next up, a shout out to Qaotik for emailing me the request to join this thread.

Now if that information doesn't convince you that I am THE Shawn McGoldrick pictured above and possibly below. Well, um, ah, I don't know how else to convince you.

I was one of the last Game Play Counselors to achieve the internal ranking of Advanced Super Agent. My tenure at the great N in Redmond lasted from 1990 to 1994.

I tested Mother/Earthbound along with several other hand-picked GPC's and the on-site full time testers for over 6-months and about twice as many revisions.

The name changed from Mother (deemed to provocative by some enlightened suit) to Earthbound (most likely someone told them the game involved aliens coming to Earth).

The game was completely translated and since the boards had battery based backup memory, the game featured a cool way of rewarding players for completing it by including the players name in the end credits (extracted by a few inquisitive NPC's throughout the game).

I was allowed to seed the game name in my profile after long deliberations determined that the game would soon be released. 4-5 months later, however, some other suit who probably never even played ANY game on the NES decided the premise of Earthbound was too weird and that gamers wouldn't get it. They were totally wrong, but who will ever really know.

To this day, this game was probably the most engaging and fun game I ever played. Over the course of the test period I probably beat it about 100 times.

When I left Nintendo, well after the release of the SNES and Gameboy, (if my memory serves) I had a tally of about 600+ games under my belt, but some petty manager confiscated all of my hand drawn maps and notes on my last day of work (I had had enough and quit under what I thought was an amicable situation). I later worked for Sony during the role out of the PS doing demo's and presentations up and down the west coast.

I don't know if any of you care but:

As I look at that profile and cringe at the hair, Another interesting tidbit floats up in my feeble brain: I was the first GPC ever allowed to be photographed wearing an earring (I snuck it in to the photoshoot and put it back in when they weren't looking... I'm such a rebel!)

Anyway, I hope this clarifies any discussion on the matter. I had actually been given a prototype board with the Earthbound eprom for my personal collection when the testing had completed. I subsequently lent it to a close friend and fellow GPC to play and never saw it again... I will see if by any chance he still has it...

Hasta!

Shawn

I don't know if there is any doubt that there is a translated EarthBound (Mother) prototype,.. and I don't know if this little piece has been brough to the public's eye.. but I was looking through an old Nintendo Power (Issue 21, February 1991), and I came across this GPC profile...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v700/Veepa/erthbnd.jpg

So it must mean that the GPCs were given translated prototypes.. I doubt this guy understands Japanese. And he didn't call it "Mother", he called it Earth Bound.

If this has already been shown, just delete it quickly to spare me the embarassment.

Spawnmc

07-22-2005, 02:12 AM

LOL, I can barely pronounce the japanese names of sushi when I order it...

So, no I don't read japanese... The game was completely translated from the first version I played on... One of the things we were tasked with was proofing all of the "all your base" type of phrases out of the game.

Shawn...

that's a pretty valid point right there, but maybe the guy DOES speak japanese. nice detective work though :)
-Josh

Veepa

07-22-2005, 02:40 AM

Wow, I never expected the actual GPC who was profiled to turn up in this thread. But thanks for all of the info.. I think it's pretty idiotic that they changed the name because they thought "Mother" suggested incest.. that's just weird. Good luck finding your prototype.. And I'm glad to see that I was right about it being translated...

By the way.. I loved the hair.

ubersaurus

07-22-2005, 03:38 AM

Theredeye did an article on lostlevels about Earthbound's proto where he proved pretty conclusively that it was legit.

Just throwing that out there.

Mia D

07-22-2005, 07:40 AM

I was one of the last Game Play Counselors to achieve the worthless internal ranking of Advanced Super Agent. My tenure at the great N in Redmond lasted from 1990 to 1994.

Shawn, have you played the rom that's been floating around? If so, how does it compare to the one you tested?

rbudrick

07-22-2005, 10:31 AM

Anyway, I hope this clarifies any discussion on the matter. I had actually been given a prototype board with the Earthbound eprom for my personal collection when the testing had completed. I subsequently lent it to a close friend and fellow GPC to play and never saw it again... I will see if by any chance he still has it...

ChaCHING if you do have it...seriously...big bucks right there.

Shawn, you are the second NOA GPC related thread this week. Check out this, if you'd like:

http://www.digitpress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=743688#743688

And welcome to the boards. Hope you stick around! I don't doubt I called you several times back in the early 90s. LOL

-Rob

yuppicide

07-22-2005, 10:44 AM

Lady Jaye

07-22-2005, 10:45 AM

Welcome aboard Shawn! And it's cool to have confirmation that the Earthbound NES proto did exist. :)

(and good luck in recuperating it)

BTW, the hair is sooo early 90s! Then again, don't we all have older pictures of us wearing clothes or styles that make us cringe nowadays? I sure do when I look at my high school pictures from the late 80s/early 90s...

stuffedmonkey

07-22-2005, 12:05 PM

mills

07-22-2005, 12:53 PM

wow, this thread is amazing. This and the other GPC involved one were fantastic reads.

Spawnmc

07-22-2005, 02:18 PM

Man, all the talk over this game is making me drool and I've never seen the game. They're right. If you can find this proto you'd have some very big bucks on your hands.

Man that hair is totally Saved By The Bell like.. 90210 rejected.

Ease up on the hair guys! Nirvanna hadn't ruined it for me and my Duran Duran inspired "do" yet in seattle, so my coif was a real crowd pleaser with tha' ladies!

If you've read Ben Smiths' article (I was a writer on his ELMO team for about a year) you'll be tickled to learn that Paul Lange and I were in a band for short time called "Genetic Pedestrian". Two great mullets that played great together or something...

.s

Spawnmc

07-22-2005, 02:30 PM

[quote=Spawnmc]

Shawn, have you played the rom that's been floating around? If so, how does it compare to the one you tested?

No I haven't. I would be curious to try it out but I really haven't looked back at the NES/SNES stuff since I departed the company.

More worthless info about my run at Nintendo: I contributed screen shots for Nintendo Power magazine and was a Priniciple artist for the Mario Paint guide. My biggest claim to fame came when I was tapped to do the in game graphics for Super Play Action Football. It started out as my creating illustrations for the initial pitch, but with the programmers in Japan not having a clue about american football, the just started scanning my stuff and using it create the sprites...

I'll shut up now... lol...

.s

sirhansirhan

07-22-2005, 02:44 PM

Not the actual proto itself - but you can buy the game from nesreproductions.com.... For those of you who have never seen the site - the guy will burn roms onto an eeprom - then swap the chip with the rom from a real NES game. He does artwork for the carts too.

I haven't bought from him yet - but one of these days I am going to get around to getting an Earthbound off of him.

Yeah, actually, a little over a week ago I just ordered two copies of his repro of Earthbound (one for me, one for a friend), and I had been anticipating their arrival greatly. Now that this thread has popped up, I am drooling and staying up at night waiting for them. I've checked the mail like five times already today (no kidding; the mail hasn't been delivered yet, and I'm going crazy).

TheRedEye

07-22-2005, 02:51 PM

So did you manage to walk away with any other EPROM carts?

Skrybe

07-22-2005, 05:24 PM

Spawnmc

07-22-2005, 06:38 PM

I had actually been given a prototype board with the Earthbound eprom for my personal collection when the testing had completed.
Wow, was Nintendo usually that quick to give out prototypes? I'd always heard that they were very careful about letting anything like that leak out.

And if you've got any other stories, related to Earthbound or not, please share! It's always interesting to hear insider kind of stuff like this.

Prototypes were very valuable but the boards themselves were considered priceless. I really don't know the circumstances behind why they allowed me to keep the final version. I worked a long time for no money testing that sucker, so maybe they thought they would treat/reward those of us who helped the most during the beta/translation testing. I know I wasn't the only one to have received a copy. But we were told to be very discreet... Who knows what was what...

Though I probably had a couple hundred NES/SNES/GB games when I left from employee contests and seasonal give aways, Earthbound was the only prototype still had in my posession. It would have been irresponsible for me to have kept any others as I was involved in a great many projects that involved prototype games and eprom carts.

You didn't stay employed there long if you "lost" one of those! And as a GPC back then, you pretty much had access to any game you wanted to play at anytime.

If you were in the testing group, you had access to even more cool stuff you wouldn't believe.

Starfox 2 for SNES/FX?

.s

qaotik

07-22-2005, 08:05 PM

Heh, glad you could make it Shawn. :)

Interesting read there, keep it up man. And I hope you get your proto back, sounds like you earned it through hard work.

b0bby

07-22-2005, 08:36 PM

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8201823941

250 @_@ ....i feel like.................dam....FUCK!

i think its real

b0bby

07-22-2005, 08:40 PM

this dude had it for like 800 BIN LOL ...before....then he put it at 350

darknut101

07-22-2005, 08:47 PM

that ebat auction is crazy. How can you tell if its a reproduction cart or an original?

mills

07-22-2005, 09:02 PM

PostPosted: Fri Jul 22, 2005 8:47 pm Post subject:
that ebat auction is crazy. How can you tell if its a reproduction cart or an original?
b0bby
PostPosted: Fri Jul 22, 2005 8:40 pm Post subject:
this dude had it for like 800 BIN Laughing ...before....then he put it at 350

It's not an original because its a reporduction that a gentleman
will make for you. Further proof is that IT WAS NEVER RELEASED IN AMERICA! A far as we know according to this thread there were a couple romboard's with the English translation on it for beta testing and thats it.

buttasuperb

07-22-2005, 09:07 PM

no way that's real.

Geno Bomb

07-22-2005, 09:15 PM

Geno Bomb

07-22-2005, 09:18 PM

That is a fake on the auction. That is exactly what mine I ordered off nesreproductions.com looked like. I have seen pictures of the prototype somewhere on starmen.net, and that is definatly not it.

b0bby

07-22-2005, 09:36 PM

well that guy at nesreproductions.com could make a killing selling them at that price X_x ....if i was him thats wat i would do

darknut101

07-22-2005, 09:58 PM

Wow $250 for a reproduction cart. That dude got ripped off.

Jumpman Jr.

07-22-2005, 09:59 PM

Veepa

07-22-2005, 10:46 PM

Ease up on the hair guys! Nirvanna hadn't ruined it for me and my Duran Duran inspired "do" yet in seattle, so my coif was a real crowd pleaser with tha' ladies!

Man, Duran Duran rocks! Well they did in the 80s and 90s anyway.. their latest work kind of sucks. But you totally pulled off the Simon LeBon with that hair.. Or were you going for the Nick Rhodes?

adaml

07-22-2005, 11:40 PM

Hey Shawn, nice to see you here. I actually remembered that a GPC had Earthbound listed as his favorite game. I never did notice the earring though. Having played through 95% of all the NES games (released), you probably answered a few questions from me back in the day, so I give you a belated "thanks" for helping me with a few of them.

Anyway, I just gotta know something. Was there ever a proto of Black Tiger by Capcom floating around for the NES? I've been seeking info on this game since I saw a couple pics in an issue of Game Players in the late 80s.

http://www.nesworld.com/mirror/nr2/blackt.jpg

Spawnmc

07-23-2005, 02:37 AM

that ebat auction is crazy. How can you tell if its a reproduction cart or an original?

This game never went into production so actual gamepacks with stickers like this were never created for the US... If this were the real thing, ie: one of the 7-10 real testing carts, the top face of the cart would be cut open and you would see eprom sockets and a couple of dip switches. This was so eproms could be easily removed and re-burned when new versions were transferred over from japan.

You'd be bidding on a $35 repro originally purchased or being posted from the guy linked earlier in this thread.

.s.

Spawnmc

07-23-2005, 02:42 AM

well that guy at nesreproductions.com could make a killing selling them at that price X_x ....if i was him thats wat i would do

Yeah, but Leon would never do that. He's to cool of a guy.
This thread amazes me. I can't beleive that Spawnmc joined after you posted the picture of him.
Spawnmc - How did you find us? Were you searching for info on the Earthbound proto you had, and this came up? Man, thats insane.

Somebody with an email name of Qaotik seemed to have tracked me down (its not hard to do on google) and requested my input on this thread.

I was a little shocked to see my power-mulleted mug scanned, enlarged, and put on display within the thread!

s.

Spawnmc

07-23-2005, 02:45 AM

Anyway, I just gotta know something. Was there ever a proto of Black Tiger by Capcom floating around for the NES? I've been seeking info on this game since I saw a couple pics in an issue of Game Players in the late 80s.

http://www.nesworld.com/mirror/nr2/blackt.jpg

Never saw or heard anything about that game that I can recall... but then again, its been 12 years since I was part of that scene! Not to mention that the good ol selective memory and mid-30's senility is taking its toll!!!

S.

Spawnmc

07-23-2005, 02:51 AM

Man, Duran Duran rocks! Well they did in the 80s and 90s anyway.. their latest work kind of sucks. But you totally pulled off the Simon LeBon with that hair.. Or were you going for the Nick Rhodes?

LOL, Simon it was! A great many a lass in high school fell for my baby blues, Wham! dance moves and Simon Lebon style... boy was I a pre-cursor to the modern metro sexual or what!?!? Disturbing stuff...

Good call there!!!

.s.

Ed Oscuro

07-23-2005, 12:42 PM

Great thread all around. How long were you with Nintendo?

Roi

07-23-2005, 02:05 PM

Can I have a signed 80's photo of you? :embarrassed:

mills

07-23-2005, 02:17 PM

knock that crap off.

rbudrick

07-25-2005, 01:47 PM

Shawn, are you still in touch with any of the GPCs or other folks at Nintendo?

-Rob

Lothars

07-25-2005, 02:16 PM

Hey Shawn, Welcome to the boards :)

I've always been interested in hearing about earthbound for the Nes, So thank you for posting the information you had.

hey I remember reading about the proto from this site called lost levels

http://www.lostlevels.org/200407/200407-earthbound.shtml

I just thought I would post this for anyone that might have
not seen the link before.

nik

07-25-2005, 04:01 PM

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8201823941

250 @_@ ....i feel like.................dam....FUCK!

i think its real

It's easy to make repo's of them now, thats a fake, and needs reporting.

evil_genius

07-25-2005, 04:37 PM

So first thing, I'd like to say thanks for scanning my long-lost GPC profile from the Startropics issue of Nintendo Power... I've been bidding on copies of that for months on eBay to no avail...

Next up, a shout out to Qaotik for emailing me the request to join this thread.

Now if that information doesn't convince you that I am THE Shawn McGoldrick pictured above and possibly below. Well, um, ah, I don't know how else to convince you.

I was one of the last Game Play Counselors to achieve the worthless internal ranking of Advanced Super Agent. My tenure at the great N in Redmond lasted from 1990 to 1994.

I tested Mother/Earthbound along with several other hand-picked GPC's and the on-site full time testers for over 6-months and about twice as many revisions. The name changed from Mother (deemed to incestual by some retarded suit) to Earthbound (most likey because someone told the suit the game involved aliens coming to Earth). The game was completely translated and since the boards had battery based backup memory, the game featured a cool way of rewarding players for completing it by including the players name in the end credits (extracted by a few inquisitive NPC's throughout the game).

I was allowed to seed the game name in my profile after long deliberations determined that the game would soon be released. 4-5 months later, however, some other suit who probably never even played ANY game on the NES decided the premise of Earthbound was too weird and that gamers wouldn't get it. They were totally wrong, but who will ever really know.

To this day, this game was probably the most engaging and fun game I ever played. Over the course of the test period I probably beat it about 100 times.

When I left Nintendo, well after the release of the SNES and Gameboy, (if my memory serves) I had a tally of about 600+ games under my belt, but some petty manager confiscated all of my hand drawn maps and notes on my last day of work (I had had enough and quit under what I thought was an amicable situation). I later worked for Sony during the role out of the PS doing demo's and presentations up and down the west coast.

I don't know if any of you care but:

As I look at that profile and cringe at the hair, Another interesting tidbit floats up in my feeble brain: I was the first GPC ever allowed to be photographed wearing an earring (I snuck it in to the photoshoot and put it back in when they weren't looking... I'm such a rebel!)

Anyway, I hope this clarifies any discussion on the matter. I had actually been given a prototype board with the Earthbound eprom for my personal collection when the testing had completed. I subsequently lent it to a close friend and fellow GPC to play and never saw it again... I will see if by any chance he still has it...

Hasta!

Shawn G. McGoldrick...http://www.sgmfx.com/2004/images/me_topcorner.jpg

I don't know if there is any doubt that there is a translated EarthBound (Mother) prototype,.. and I don't know if this little piece has been brough to the public's eye.. but I was looking through an old Nintendo Power (Issue 21, February 1991), and I came across this GPC profile...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v700/Veepa/erthbnd.jpg

So it must mean that the GPCs were given translated prototypes.. I doubt this guy understands Japanese. And he didn't call it "Mother", he called it Earth Bound.

If this has already been shown, just delete it quickly to spare me the embarassment.

lmfao

DeputyMoniker

07-26-2005, 09:07 AM

This place is amazing. Thanks for joining, Shawn. I hope you stick around. You could be a wealth of information. Have you posted in the "Introduce Yourself" thread yet? If not then please do...I'm sure I'm not the only one here who uses it as a quick reference when I'm trying to remember who someone is. Also, we have the option to start a Blog here. I'd be really interested in reading what you have to say. After reading this thread I've found you have some really interesting stories to tell! Welcome to DP, dude!

segarocks30

07-26-2005, 10:41 AM

Wow theres someone famous on digitpress! Just to say shawn ive been a susciber for nintendo power for 4 years since i wasnt even born wheen that picture was taken of you tell me how n power was in those days shawn.

Li Wang

07-29-2005, 05:10 PM

This is all very interesting, especially the cart being given to you as a gift. When I was beginning research for the Lost Levels article, I talked to the guy who originally sold the prototype. He claimed he got it from a friend who worked at Nintendo and that this friend was given the cart as a gift. I wrote it off as being inaccurate since Nintendo is always so careful never to let anything get out, but this brings a whole new interesting aspect to the table. Of course, lots of stuff about that possible explanation still doesn't add up.

Also, are you sure about some suit thinking the title suggested incest? What the heck was up with that?

rbudrick

07-29-2005, 05:51 PM

This is all very interesting, especially the cart being given to you as a gift. When I was beginning research for the Lost Levels article, I talked to the guy who originally sold the prototype. He claimed he got it from a friend who worked at Nintendo and that this friend was given the cart as a gift. I wrote it off as being inaccurate since Nintendo is always so careful never to let anything get out, but this brings a whole new interesting aspect to the table. Of course, lots of stuff about that possible explanation still doesn't add up.

Perhaps his friend is the one who sold the original EB proto leaked to the web, hence mucho secrecy from him later?
Maybe that was Shawn's cart!!

You know, that would be really weird if that were true.....and all discovered by this initially tame thread. This thread keeps getting better, heh heh.

-Rob

Li Wang

07-29-2005, 06:46 PM

One of the things that doesn't make sense with that explanation is that Sandhop seemed pretty convinced the 1994 dates were not misprints. Of course, everything else he concluded from the label would probably still work if it was a misprint. It's also possible the cart was slipped out by someone as we always assumed and the person who did it knew of the other copies of the game being given away to employees all those years before. It would make sense to keep that in mind as your story if you knew you were taking something you'd get into serious trouble for if someone found out you had it.

leonk

08-01-2005, 08:59 PM

:roll:

I leave for a long weekend at the cottage, and this auction comes up AGAIN! x_x

Yes... that's one of my reproductions. No.. I don't know who the buyer is (real name vs eBay aliases.. hard to tell).

I'm not going to ever sell these reproductions on eBay simply because it's a side hobby of mine. I have a full time job (which seems to be close to 50 hours per week these days). That's why many of you haven't seen me post at the usual places for a while. :(

As far as EB authenticity.. it's real. lostlevels.org had a great article about it a while back.