Nintendo's LOST Hardware

the game boy notable for such landmark titles as tetris super mario land and link's awakening for some players however their nostalgia towards the system is tied not only to its games but its wild assortment of accessories the era produced a glut of unexpected peripherals for the device everything from a camera to a fish sonar was covered in a frantic bid to cash in on nintendo's hit handheld many of these fetch top dollar in online auctions years later as enthusiasts continue to hunt down these increasingly obscure pieces of video game history but for nearly 30 years one of these has consistently eluded collectors around the world a device known as work boy this pda style add-on would have granted users access to all manner of productivity related applications propping the game boy up with its accompanying stand and plugging it in promised to essentially transform it into a small personal computer officially licensed by nintendo and produced by washington-based fabtech inc the work boy was previewed by multiple press outlets in the early 90s before vanishing without a trace in the absence of an explanation from any of the parties involved a mystery spanning multiple decades lingered what really happened to the work boy and would it be possible for me to find one nearly 30 years later i set out to answer these questions and more the result was an investigation spanning many months in this edition of game history secrets i bring you the story of the work boy and my experiences with it you can have all the power and excitement of nintendo right in the palm of your hand tracing the origins of the work boy takes us all the way back to the early 1990s online information on its creation has been largely sourced from a small handful of gaming magazines that had written features on it back in the day such as nintendo power the game boy was in its prime and two companies had joined forces across two continents to take advantage of this rapidly expanding user base source research and development in the uk designed the peripheral and fabtech a washington-based startup was planning to produce it in close collaboration with nintendo trademark filings indicate that the device was first registered by nintendo of america in january 1992. several months later the boy came to the attention of the press when it made a couple of appearances at trade shows most notably the consumer electronics show in may in the midst of a massive nintendo presence at the event was a modest fabtech booth where an early prototype could be glimpsed displaying its various functions responses to the demonstration were largely positive uk publication game zone described it as an impressive little utility and said nintendo's success was visible by its showing at the ces it virtually had a whole hangar to itself filled with its own products and those of its developers but there was little on offer that was radically different little that is except the work boy a chicago tribune writer on the other hand was less enamored with it branding it as the exhibition's most ridiculous nintendo peripheral it's just the thing for the 12 year old entrepreneur on the go and it should be a big hit with young drug dealers everywhere they said these comments aside the work boys star was clearly rising the developers were being profiled in magazines nintendo was pushing it at events and it was even given a glowing endorsement on uk television games master a popular uk video game tv show ranked it as their number one add-on for handheld consoles what's more is that they had arranged to launch the work boy exclusively at a games master live event due to take place in december 1992 games master live did go forward at birmingham's nec but the work boy was nowhere to be found the show never revisited the topic and the device was never again seen despite this among those aware of the niche add-on it has become commonly believed that it did receive a release but that very few units were produced this idea seemingly spread to popular internet series the angry video game nerd as seen in his coverage of game boy accessories lots of these game boy accessories are rare some of the ones that i couldn't get my hands on are the game boy fm radio the work boy where you can plug in a keyboard and turn the game boy into a personal computer just in case you didn't like using a monitor the truth is however that the work boy was never released and no prototype units have ever been recovered to find out why i began reaching out to former staff from source r d its original creators as i began my research in late 2019 it became apparent to me that i was not the first person to look into this i spoke to a number of fellow writers and gaming history enthusiasts who had also attempted to get answers on why the work boy had disappeared tracking down the developers of an unreleased peripheral from nearly three decades ago has its challenges the two major companies behind it source and fabtech ceased operations long ago and everyone who worked there has obviously moved on with their lives they've found work in other industries some of them have retired and in some cases they've forgotten a lot of what they were privy to but all was not lost i did have a couple of leads to go on a number of source staff were featured in a 1992 issue of game zone magazine having both names and faces made tracking them down considerably easier all these years later the former members of source typically maintained a fairly minimal internet presence but thankfully the person whose insight i most sought was reachable that was the original architect of the work boy eddie gill who agreed to share his side of the story eddie founded source in 1987 the company based in leeds england allowed him to realize his ambitions of inventing new technologies alongside these technological pursuits they were also creating video games this arm of the business led to them sometimes being referred to as source the software house the company developed a number of titles including game boy puzzle game pyramids of ra and noah's ark a religious platformer for nes published by konami it was only a matter of time before the company's fascinations with technology and video games overlapped and in early 1992 the work boy was born eddie partnering with fabtech in the us had identified a gap in the market for a game boy add-on for productivity purposes with personal computers still being financially prohibitive to many and holding limited appeal to the masses eddie's concept for the work boy presented a more accessible alternative it was a lower cost option that could be used with a device many families already owned the gadget offered a multitude of different functions including a world clock calculator bank account statements weight and currency conversions and an appointment book it would have retailed at around 79 to 89 us dollars in around late 1992 early 1993. as to why this all never came about eddie presented his recollection of events but suggested i reach out to someone else for clarification he also left me with one more tantalizing piece of information eddie had not seen a work boy in person for many years despite creating it he did not own a prototype himself and believe that potentially only two were left in existence one he said was rumored to have been retained deep in the vaults of nintendo the other was possibly in the possession of a former colleague of his this individual was frank blue the founder of fabtech who was in charge of production on the work boy bulu was a games industry veteran of many years having worked at numerous big companies at the dawn of the home console market years later he had left the business behind and was imparting his wisdom at speaking gigs around the world skyping in from his home in athens greece frank regaled me with how he came to be in charge of a lost game boy addon his time in the industry started in 1975 at atari where he became the vice president of marketing at their coin operated games division there he helped steer the company's game output through an unprecedented period of growth ultimately however frank was fired from the video game giant in 1982 he claims this happened as the company's management was restructured to incentivize atari exec don osborne from leaving to work for a competitor frank ended up at nintendo of america in 1983 placed in charge of sales and marketing at their coin-op division after nine months in the job he was head hunted by arcade game producer gottlieb known as milestar electronics at the time to run their pinball and video development frank says he departed nintendo on very good terms and was even told by nintendo of america founder minoru arakawa that he had an open invitation to return this was an offer frank ended up accepting much sooner than anticipated less than one year later he quit milestar following friction with their parent company columbia pictures after nine months i went back to nintendo howard lincoln who is senior vice president goes frank what do you mean did that that that awakawan ron judy and nuts how do we know you won't do this again i go howard howard if somebody offers me a 35 40 raise again i probably will do it after several years at nintendo the winds of change were sweeping the industry as their grip on the home console market tightened the arcade industry was steadily becoming less of a focus for nintendo shortly after releasing their play choice 10 cabinets in 1986 frank made the decision to leave and form his own company as i told nintendo i got guys you've got more to offer the industry and and i go i've got more to offer the industry they go frank we thought you would say that but we understand in 1987 frank formed fabtech a game publisher and technology company whose name was derived from its own initials we had some games like everybody else but but we had some classic games a game called cabal which did very very well for us while heading up fabtech frank was also running the american branch of japanese arcade game manufacturer irem it was through that job that in the late 80s he met source founder eddie gill creator of the work boy eddie was so so far ahead of his time overall premise for the work boy was parents are gonna get tired of buying games for their kids let's buy something that the parents and grandparents will think it's useful for them as our chart led into his time developing the work boy frank casually dropped a bombshell on our conversation i'm looking over over in my bookcase one of the original work boys just just sitting there you know and uh you know it it it it could have been something to just uh go back a little bit uh did you say that you've got uh something of the work boy there oh yeah oh yeah i i i've got one that although my earphones won't reach for a few moments of rummaging later he appeared on my screen work boy in hand [Music] oh wow okay so so you can see that then yes i can see that yeah adding to the gravity of this frank mentioned that he believed this was the last work boy left when the project met its end he held onto it as a keepsake a fond reminder of what could have been after our call frank gave me a closer look at this near finalized prototype it was in good condition having survived numerous overseas trips and years of sitting on a shelf we both agreed that it would more than likely still work however we had no way to test it since frank did not own an original gameboy himself i offered to send him one but he had a simpler idea [Music] a few weeks later it arrived in my mailbox seeing it in person was more than a little surreal up until this point the only images of it online that i could find were taken 28 years ago and yet here it was well kept preserved in a game boy advance carry case alongside a prototype of sources pyramid of raw game the question was would it work i hooked it up to a few different game boys and the results were anti-climactic previously it was my understanding that simply plugging it into the gameboy's link cable port and turning it on would allow me to access its features that was how it was presented in games master's piece back in the day and that was also frank's recollection of how it functioned but when i plugged it in basically nothing happened the game boy wasn't visibly affected in any way regardless of whether or not i had a cartridge inserted there was one sign of life however plugging it into a powered on game boy caused the work boy to emit a fairly loud beep out of the speaker on its underside [Music] i caught up with eddie gill whose comprehensive knowledge of the device allowed us to diagnose the issue that noise the work boy was making was actually its alarm function being tripped the work boy had its own clock and speaker allowing for the game boy to serve as an alarm clock this was possibly a bug that had yet to be smoothed out of this prototype unit it was at this point that it also became clear why the work boy wasn't working prior to our discussion frank had emphasized to me that his memory of the device might be less than perfect and as it turned out he was right to do so because this keyboard was only one piece of the puzzle as eddie explained a separate cottage was required to access its software in hindsight this might seem obvious but this was the first mention of a cartridge being included that i had come across none of the original literature from the project referenced one nor did any of the magazine write a site scene i went back to the drawing board and started reaching out to some other former developers to see if by some remote chance someone still had the software we needed it was then that one of these game industry alumni raised a possibility i had only briefly considered starting in april 2020 following a number of high-profile security breaches in the previous two years the contents of some hacked nintendo servers leaked online the files originally linked to on 4chan encompassed a mammoth horde of data going back decades this gigantic dump of illicitly obtained intellectual property was christened as the gigaleak while gaming historians the world over reveled in the discovery of previously unseen and unused assets from classic nintendo games my mind was elsewhere it occurred to me what if by some strange twist of fate these hackers had inadvertently obtained the work boys software it was a remote possibility but not something that i could rely upon several weeks after recovering the peripheral the dust was settling on the most significant nintendo data leak up until that point i was waiting to hear back from a potential lead when the final piece of the puzzle slid into place on the 9th of september 2020 another big leak of nintendo data spilled out onto the internet and enthusiasts quickly began rifling through it i was put in touch with one such individual a contributor to the cutting room floor known only as waluigi they had excavated a rom from the latest drop originating from source and fabtech it was none other than the very workboy software i had been searching for after 28 years of essentially nothing the software had leaked within only a few weeks of me obtaining the prototype hardware this wild coincidence wasn't lost on myself and the members of the source team i'd been speaking to for as ethically questionable as these leaks were one upside was that they were reuniting former developers with their long lost work eddie gill for instance later told me that he never imagined having a copy of this software again in the hours after this data was posted a small handful of interested parties began tinkering around with the workboy rom though initial attempts to emulate the software were met with mixed results the title screen and a menu displaying several different options were accessible but the applications themselves crashed upon selection the only one that worked as intended was the calculator app where users could move a cursor around the screen and push buttons it is as i mentioned earlier this software is only one piece of the puzzle it was built to be used by a peripheral the work boy keyboard is not just an accessory it is intrinsic to the software on a programming level without modifications raw emulation could only take us so far it was built to be navigated using the buttons on this keyboard the game boy's inputs had limited functionality furthermore the game boy does not have a built-in clock the work boy keyboard does without the add-on there is no way for the clock app to be able to read the time there were other complications to weigh up as well eddie shared that the game cart they were developing contained a small amount of memory as did the work boy keyboard itself with all of this said the time had finally come to put the device to the test and introduced software to hardware after close to three decades of dormancy there was no guarantee that this potentially the last remaining work boy would still work i burned the rom to a rewriteable cartridge inserted both cart and add-on then powered it on the workboy's usual beeping came out of the speaker once again but as i booted up the software the alarm gave way to silence a push of the keyboard's return button confirmed that it was functional in fact it worked without any issues the buttons across the top of the keyboard allowed instantaneous access to each application switching between them was a swift and easy process all of the errors present in emulation were gone the clock did think that it had been awakened in the year 2055 but aside from that it was working as were all the other apps the work boy had lived in total the software features 12 individual applications and most of them have secondary functions within them the most straightforward of these is the clock which displays the time in both analog and digital formats it has an alarm feature as well there is a basic calculator which you operate by pressing different letters on the qwerty keyboard since it lacks dedicated number buttons the keys are labeled above them with their alternate functions in the calculator the address book app would have allowed users to record phone numbers and other info in a database although its functionality in this build is limited by inputting phone numbers into the workboy players could use it as a digital phone book and automatically dial numbers by playing the dial tones into a phone the workboy sports a variety of conversion related applications too for one you can view the difference between fahrenheit and celsius temperature scales with its interactive thermometer another app offers conversion between metric and imperial systems with a plethora of different options like inches to centimeters feet to meters and pounds to kilograms on top of that the device even offers currency conversion although it requires an other degree of input on the part of the user the user must manually insert the exchange rate between the two different currencies before the work boy can begin crunching the numbers this is of course because the device has no way of automatically updating the rates itself on the topic of money the workboy also has facilities for helping manage savings users can manually input their income and expenditure to keep track of their finances data inputted can be saved to the work boys records and reviewed later the remainder of the work boys tools relate to world geography and languages the world functions app includes what it calls a mini translator the user can search individual words or prove a glossary of subjects to choose from such as greetings travel food weather medical and emergency each category includes a number of common words and phrases that can be translated between english german french spanish and italian the rest of the work boy fully supports these same five languages as well lastly is the world map which allows users to peruse the different countries of the world simply type in the name of a country and the map will be highlighted with its location as a bonus a select handful of major world nations even include an abridged 8-bit rendition of their respective national anthems that will play when selected [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] the work boy contains around a dozen national anthems in total and there you have it the work boy is real it works and this build labeled 8.87 is very close to a finished product eddie gill believes that this version recovered from nintendo's servers was one of several prototypes sent to them during development only a few elements remained unclear such as the device's targeted ability to connect to personal computers which would have supposedly allowed it to receive contact information and other data the question remains then why was it never put into production the decision ultimately came down to the head of fabtech frank blue just months before the launch of the work boy frank pulled the plug when he learned that plans were in motion at nintendo to slash the price of the game boy in light of this frank worried that the work boy could not be priced competitively enough to succeed the work boy itself could have retailed for as much as 89.95 in the us the original launch price of the game boy was 89.99 post price cut the work boy could have potentially been more expensive than the handheld itself in a worst case scenario the work boys planned early launch in late 92 at games master live didn't move forward and in around 1993 the project was effectively scrapped according to eddie gill had it not been there were other hurdles laying ahead that the device would have had to contend with in july of 93 around when it was once intended to be in production a large explosion ripped through a factory making material for computer chips in japan at the time the sumitomo chemical coke facility in nihama produced more than half of the world's supply of an epoxy resin called krezel this is used to make protective cases for computer chips in particular dram the form of memory which would have been used in the work boy as a direct result of this disaster the price of d-rams sought had the device been in production this would have been just one of the challenges fabtech would have had to navigate in spite of this frank told me that he does believe the work boy would have been successful and that he has his regrets about cancelling it it was at that time that i made that brilliant brilliant decision that i kicked myself in a butt for that i pulled the plug and we didn't go forward because i still think at that price we we could have sold some units on it see you you regret it to a certain extent yes i'm i'm looking over it in my bookcase one of the original work boys just just sitting there and uh you know it it it it could have been something a couple of years following the cancellation frank's time at fabtech came to an end as he transferred ownership of the company to his wife at the time and moved on to pastors new eddie gill on the other hand continued to tie with the idea of the work boy his original design helped inspire a new device he patented in 1994 for a personal communicator with a keyboard and touchscreen gill later licensed this design to nokia it became the basis for the nokia 9000 series of devices that launched in 1996. a few years later eddie became a design consultant at nintendo where he helped draw plans for a number of accessories that also never came to be among his ideas was a revamped work boy for the game boy advance which held the tentative name workboy2 it encompassed many of the same features of its predecessor and was planned to have online functionality of some kind such as email and web browsing as well as a word processor production on the workboy 2 never moved forward and no prototype was ever built all that remains of it are these concepts showing the keyboard and shell that would have attached to the handheld eddy left nintendo in 2001 marking the end of his decade-long endeavors to bring a productivity add-on to the game boy many of the work boys features are today taken for granted in modern devices but it isn't hard to appreciate the novelty it would have held back in the early 90s in an era before widespread internet access and smartphones this was a swiss army knife of productivity applications running on something as simple as the original game boy whether or not it would have found an audience however is something we will never know by the late 90s nintendo was enjoying a comfortable lead over the hantel video game market with sega all but vanquished in this corner of the industry the game boy and its successor the game boy color were dominating it was in light of these high sails that nintendo had been exploring a number of ways to expand upon the game boy line through peripherals and add-ons and in 1999 the company hit upon an opportunity approached by a former executive of theirs and an inventor from the uk nintendo of america was presented with a chance to realize one of the most ambitious game boy attachments of all time this first party add-on was poised to open up a world of wireless communication to game boy color users including email web browsing photo messaging and much more the story behind this device has remained an obscure secret of nintendo history for over 20 years until now in this episode of game history secrets i reveal the never before seen nintendo page boy and what happened to it source research and development was a game studio in leeds england in the early 90s the company developed a relationship with nintendo of america when their founder eddie gail invented a productivity add-on for the original gameboy the workboy as it was called was made in a close partnership between nintendo source r d and fabtech a game publisher run by former nintendo executive frank blue despite leaving a lasting impression on gamers and the few press outlets that sampled the device the workboy ultimately never made it to market this multifunctional keyboard add-on was deemed too risky of an investment by fabtech founder frank bellew after he learned that nintendo was planning to drop the price of the game boy how the work boy launched it may have cost as much as the game boy system itself a potential comparison that was unfavorable enough for blue to shelve the whole project in 1993 for inventor eddie gill on the other hand the ideas behind the work boy would live on the concept inspired him to create an original design for a mobile phone and communicator as head of research and development at a company named maxim phillips in 1995 the gadget was bought by nokia and was eventually turned into the nokia 9000 series of devices the workboy was never able to see an official release but eddie's drive to develop a game boy addon was far from extinguished it was in late 1997 that he left his position at maxim phillips to pursue what he considered to be a spiritual continuation of the work boy with new ideas of its own he independently started work on this new project drawing plans for a game boy color add-on based around communication the project however required plenty of technological savvy and for that eddie reached out to his brother christopher gill an experienced programmer and digital artist while eddie's speciality was ideas he told me chris excelled in realizing those ideas from a technical standpoint chris had previously worked alongside eddie at source on the work boy in a similar arrangement where he was responsible for graphic design while the workboy was essentially a third-party add-on with close ties to nintendo it was apparent to the gill brothers that they would need nintendo to fully embrace their new device as a product of their own in order for it to reach its potential the scale of their ambition with this new gadget was immense eddie envisioned an add-on for the game boy color that would allow users to communicate with one another over long distances they could send each other messages photos emails they could view the internet to get news updates and all of this would be accomplished completely wirelessly from almost anywhere in the world years before nintendo even considered implementing such technology into their handouts the add-on aimed to revolutionize communication between game boy owners with a distinctly nintendo flourish the communication worked via radio waves using the same frequency implied by most two-way pages at the time in honor of this fact eddie named the device pageboy the group formed to create this new product would come to be known simply as wizard their plans for the pageboy were extensive but could only be realized through nintendo's full support according to eddie gaining their cooperation would be easier said than done since wizard had no formal inroads with the tech giant at the time however they had an ace up their sleeve in the form of ex-nintendo executive frank ballou having joined forces for the work boy several years earlier eddie hoped that frank would help him get his foot in the door once again as he attempted to sell them on this new concept after hearing the details of the project blue quickly agreed to get them an introduction with the higher ups at nintendo of america the branch at which he had previously worked a meeting was set up in 1999 in which eddie presented their proposal to nintendo of america's heads those in attendance included noa president minor arakawa chairman howard lincoln and engineering head wayne allen shirk the pitch was meticulous in its research presenting in great detail how it would work this included a technical breakdown of how the page boy would transfer data by way of radio telemetry and concept images of both hardware and software not only did they have documents and art showing what it would look like wizard had commissioned the creation of physical models of the device via serious model making another company in leeds england as well as all of this the group had built a visual demonstration in microsoft powerpoint previewing what the pageboy would look like in action all of its major targeted features were on display in this interactive tour of the proposed software such as messaging and internet access in my research i was able to recover a version of the demo used to sell their ideas to nintendo the software was heavily themed around the company's iconic mascot mario complete with wizard's own take on the music from the mario games and even some voice acting to start off with the title screen art featured the character posing with a version of the page boy logo next to a graphic of planet earth and several game boys there was also ask mario a proposed nintendo search engine optimized for the page boy where users could look up various queries such as items for sale mario would have appeared throughout these applications speaking to the user briefly as they transitioned between them there was even the idea to have him whistle the world 1-1 theme from super mario bros as content was loading i find it they were keenly aware that getting access to the mario ip was a long shot eddie gill told me but they were leaving no stone unturned in their efforts to win anyway over the page boy really held nothing back when it came to embracing nintendo as a brand for example one suggested part of its software imagine making a version of the officially licensed magazine nintendo power available for users to read page boy owners would have been able to read up on the latest game news and reviews all on the handout in addition to this was a highly ambitious feature named gameboy tv this was intended to be a part of the software that could receive a live broadcast from nintendo that would display exclusive information on upcoming products in real time it was envisioned as a potential avenue for the company to announce new games directly to consumers any time they wanted if that sounds familiar then yes gail was essentially attempting an early version of the nintendo direct on the game boy color well over a decade before those live events were introduced many possibilities were being explored of game boy tv such as the idea of players submitting their game scores via page boy and those of the highest would have their names displayed during broadcasts all of these apps would have been aided by the implementation of animations graphics fonts and sounds being pre-installed on the device itself this would have allowed for minimal data usage and quicker loading speeds with a targeted rate of around 400 characters per minute alongside gaming previews and reviews page boy users were also supposed to be able to get access to world news sports results and weather forecasts the latest weather information would have been accessed via a scrolling map not as similar to the interface nintendo later employed for the wii's weather channel the add-ons premiere feature however was its two-way messaging users would have been able to type out a message on their system then choose pre-stored animations music and themes to bring it to life for instance they could select a letter with a happy birthday song and an animation of a birthday cake it was also suggested that the pageboy would have been able to connect to existing gameboy peripherals to expand its capabilities was it hoped that owners of the game boy camera could take photographs of themselves using its front-facing camera and share them with one another in other words they wanted to allow users to message selfies to one another years before the mobile phone industry came to realize this concept furthermore they were hoping that the page boy would be able to save images and messages received and then print them using the game boy printer in order to make this work the page boy would have fitted into the gameboy's cartridge slot and then would have had its own additional cartridge slot on top of it this would allow users to have the add-on attached to their game boy and still be able to play games or for the pageboy to interface directly with other peripherals in such a scenario pageboy itself would have been accessed by pressing down on the d-pad upon startup the developers were even proposing a phone system that could be used to email pageboys consumers who wanted to interact with one without using a pageboy directly were intended to be able to call a phone service specify a message and theme before giving the operator a particular pageboy address this would have been the only paid element of the product aside from the upfront cost of the device at retail using pageboy's onboard features such as messaging or game boy tv would have been entirely free no subscriptions or accounts were required either all of this and more was presented to nintendo of america at their initial meeting and the response was one of immediate fascination according to eddie noa president minoru arakawa took a particular interest believing it had the potential to be a commercial success he responded by greenlighting an internal investigation on nintendo as to how they would get the product to market the wizard group's efforts 10 months of rigorous research had paid off as nintendo agreed to work with them directly on this new project and he signed on at nintendo of america as design consultant in summer 1999 and from that point on the pageboy was being looked at as an internally made first party add-on for the game boy line of systems as per the suggestion of peter eck nintendo of america's director of network products the project was given the code name cheetah for the following months eddie worked with a team at nintendo of america further exploring the many possibilities of the add-on among these were considerations for allowing the device to unlock additional content in games for example players could theoretically access an exclusive level or item if they had the page boy attached using its radio capabilities to allow for live authentication on the other hand its planned clock app was reminiscent of the workboy with essentially the same set of functions the time displayed in unlock and digital formats as well as an alarm capability in another leaf out of the workboy's book the pageboy would have required its own batteries two double a's in this case and would have had its own built-in memory some thought had been given as to how it would function as a physical product also in addition to the physical models that were made the team was weighing up the option of adding a clip that would allow the page boy to be attached to a belt or over item of clothing documents indicate that the device would have vibrated when any message was received nintendo's investigation into the page boys spanned about three years starting in 1999 and coming to a close in summer 2002. during this time eddie had gained the interest of pagemart a company based in dallas texas which operated a narrowband personal communications service network that allowed for two-way paging after the network's launch in 1998 pagemont was set to become a major player in the communications market and was having preliminary talks with eddie's team to provide the network service that would be the backbone of the pageboy nintendo's peter eck eventually took over negotiations as they progressed a great deal of time was spent deliberating over how the addon would send photographs over the air from the game boy camera nintendo brought in their own experts to examine the situation who expressed concerns about file compression however eddie was able to reduce the size of pictures imported from the camera by removing every other line of pixels from the screen the end result he said bore a resemblance to 1960s television displays it was an unconventional solution that impressed nintendo and allowed the team to hit their file size target what had initially sold nintendo on the page boy in general was its potential as a product for international audiences however over time it became clear that potential wasn't as strong as had been initially believed nintendo liked it on paper by all accounts but from a technological perspective it would have only been feasible in a limited number of markets such as the us their investigation found that there were no cost-effective duplex wireless data networks covering japan or europe at the time had the page boy move forward it would have therefore been limited to north america it was deemed by nintendo's management back at its japanese headquarters that this would have gone against the core appeal of the device nintendo wanted it to be universally available and functional around the world this they believed was key to its success the pageboy was shelved for good in around july 2002. the outcome was disappointing for members of the team like eddie gill but he told me that he was more than understanding upon learning the news and ultimately agreed with that decision the device would have been doable they believed in america but limiting its scope to one territory essentially defeated the point of what they were trying to accomplish a ubiquitous add-on for the game boy colour's massive user base that would have allowed consumers from all over the world to communicate with one another and for nintendo to deliver information to each one of them directly the pageboy was quite literally too ahead of its time for its own good but in many ways it foreshadowed a number of innovations that nintendo themselves would end up adopting game boy live could be seen as an early precursor to the nintendo direct a messaging system that worked via automatically assigned email addresses similar to the wii's news and weather channels bonus content exclusive to those who owned a certain accessory live high scores being accessible to users in pitch documents the page boy was even being pushed with a phrase anytime anywhere a slogan that was later used to market the nintendo switch in the end no actual prototypes were produced for the device and all that remains of it is what i've shown you in this video it's possible eddie gill shared that nintendo might have retained some of the physical models made for the project but nothing playable exists other than this demo presentation the pageboy finds its place in nintendo history as an add-on that could have changed the way they did business from the way playable content was distributed to how they announced games themselves had it made it to market there were thoughts about bringing it to other handhelds like the game boy pocket and whatever future platforms nintendo was planning but without that first device making it into production it instead joins the workboy as another innovative accessory that will always leave us wondering what could have been unafraid to diversify and experiment nintendo has worn many hats over its long history in the video game business but something that has remained consistent throughout it is their very evident affinity for peripherals whether it's the infamous rob the robot some dk bongos or a headset made from cardboard fans have come to expect the unexpected from their accessories as unconventional as some of them may be there have been many others that didn't make it to market and in this video i'll be delving into a handful of them from proposals nintendo shot down to fully greenlit projects that were later cancelled we begin with the oldest case study on our list which takes us all the way back to the third generation of home consoles the nes sported its share of unusual accessories like the pressure sensitive power pad or the notorious power glove a similar such curiosity almost joined their ranks at the start of the system's lifespan as revealed years later by ex-nintendo game master howard phillips the company had been extensively mulling over the concept of an officially licensed nintendo knitting machine the device would have connected to the nes to knit sweaters and users would have been able to choose from a multitude of different patterns according to phillips it was nintendo of america's president minoru arakawa who instructed him to pitch the product to taizoro's founder and chairman charles lazarus he was apparently given very little notice about 30 minutes in fact to prepare for the meeting his presentation included a live demonstration of the prototype knitting machine in action which phillips described in a facebook post as likely one of his least genuinely enthusiastic demos toys r us and other retailers weren't interested nor were attendees of 1987's winter consumer electronics show who had a chance to view the machine in its one and only public appearance after flying under the radar the nintendo knitting machine faded into obscurity and was never put into full production the gamecube went through various iterations over the course of its conceptualization nintendo and their perpetual search for new innovations trialled a number of emerging technologies during its creation this led to multiple unrealised peripherals that were considered and prototyped extensively the first was a gamecube controller which included motion sensors nintendo's history with such technology is well documented the company quietly experimented with it for years before building it into hardware like the wii few people outside of nintendo were privy to their motion sensing gamecube controllers but the developers at factor 5 inc were among them according to a developer who worked on gamecube launch titled star wars rogue squadron 2 they had even flirted with the idea of using the motion controls in that game after nintendo granted them access to the early prototype controllers this wasn't to be however as the technology was vetoed by nintendo shortly thereafter to focus on making a more traditional console and decreased production costs another long-term obsession of nintendo's is 3d a fascination which eventually culminated in the nintendo 3ds this technology was also tested on the game qbs earlier although these attempts got much further than their aforementioned accelerometers nintendo was once planning to release a small lcd screen which could be attached to the gamecube alleviating the need for a television and enabling a greater level of portability this add-on made only one public appearance at e3 2002 it could be seen behind glass displaying demos for games like fantasy star online and metroid prime unbeknownst to attendees the prototype unit had a hidden feature which remained a company secret until former nintendo president satoru water revealed all years later it was fully capable of displaying glasses-less 3d via the same method of auto stereoscopy used by the 3ds in 2001 producer hideki kono had been involved in creating a 3d version of luigi's mansion that would use this device it had depth so it really pulled you into the world of the game i thought it was great kono said despite this positive internal reception it was held back from release by production costs liquid crystal was still expensive back then and no matter how new an experience we could provide through the games there would have been a need for players to buy the lcd as an accessory there was even talk that it could turn out to be more expensive than the console itself while nintendo's version never came to market third-party manufacturers stepped up to the plate with their own lcd screens minus 3d and battery packs allowing the gamecube to be fully portable in 2007 factor 5 inc proposed to nintendo rebooting some of their long dormant franchises like kid icarus and pilotwings for the latter the studio envisioned an original peripheral to be released alongside it this was a pair of glasses with two infrared lights mounted on them a gadget inspired by a 2007 viral video from computer scientist johnny lee in the video lee demonstrated a setup using a wii remote and infrared glasses that could produce the 3d effect as well as tracking the user's head movements the user would position a wii remote facing away from their screen towards them the wii remote's ir camera would then detect the infrared lights in the glasses transmitting this information to a computer program the end result was the user's ability to adjust their view of the camera in the program by moving around the room and tilting their head factor v wanted to adopt lee's concept and use the peripheral in their wii games players would have been able to seamlessly adjust the in-game camera via head tracking presenting a possible solution to the wii remotes and nunchucks lack of a second unlock stick according to the studio's president julian egbrecht they were talking with nintendo in 2008 to potentially produce the device although they weren't interested in making either of their proposed reboots the heads of factor v persisted nevertheless and decided to develop their pilot wings game as an original ip called we fly another publisher named zoo games picked the game up and with it their wee glasses peripheral according to zoo games co-founder lee cummings they had planned to produce the glasses in-house and were holding discussions with potential manufacturers in order to do so in the meantime the team was creating prototypes using parts from disassembled wii sensor bars however the rocky economic climate of late 2008 forced zoo games to go out of business leaving their factor v projects without funding a previously interested nintendo declined intervene and factor five inc unable to pay its workers closed in december 2008. the wii's head tracking glasses would never see the light of day as a result the two games that did support it we fly and star wars rogue leaders rogue squadron wii never saw release either one nintendo accessory that did eventually launch was the wii zapper this plastic mold could house the wii remote and dunchuk to mimic the feel of an arcade light gun debuting alongside zelda's spin-off link's crossbow training it would go on to be supported by only a handful of games throughout the generation the original vision for this peripheral was quite different from the final product however initial designs imagined a device with slightly higher production quality that would have effectively served as an add-on for the wii remotes more akin to the nunchuck a prototype model for this iteration of the zapper was shown off at e3 2006. unlike the finished design it more closely resembled a shotgun as opposed to a sub-machine gun the device would connect to the wii remote's connection ports and had its own control stick built in it also had a trigger hole with one large button instead of the nunchuck's two shoulder buttons called zed and c respectively as development went on this prototype zapper was given its own independent rumble feature players could insert one additional double a battery into the device which would provide rumble feedback to the whole zapper when players successfully hit a target in their demo nintendo's sources explained that concerns about pricing were to blame for this version of the zappa being next a comment from nintendo designer shigeru miyamoto in an iwata asks interview seems to support this suggestion we decided against it because we really didn't want customers to have to buy the extra batteries that's one of the reasons developing this product took so long its rumble functionality and control stick stripped out the wii zapper was essentially reduced to a plastic shell it was finally released in late 2007 in january 2008 israeli tech firm 3dv systems announced a new webcam called the z car this was billed as a desktop camera with an infrared sensor for tracking the movements of its users it was capable of sensing depth allowing it to detect how close users were to it as well as their exact gestures with low levels of latency the device made a few appearances at trade shows throughout 2008 including the consumer electronics show its primary application was for video games and 3dv demonstrated this with a boxing game prototype responses among attendees were said to have been positive sites like ign expressed their admiration for the accuracy of its controls what wasn't known at the time was that prior to these public showings the z-com was originally proposed to nintendo as a potential peripheral for the wii 3dv presented their ideas to the higher-ups of nintendo in late 2007 according to cvg their presentation is said to have left an impression on the company's management including satoru water they apparently showed off their aforementioned boxing demo and a prototype of the zcamp with voice recognition functionality they presented it as a new twist on the motion controls that nintendo had pioneered reasoning that it would be a natural fit for the platform's audience although their presentation is said to have impressed them nintendo ultimately did not agree according to a source from their kyoto hq iwata himself raised concerns about input lag and that it would be too costly to sell as an additional accessory for context the zcam was later said to be sold as a standalone product for pcs at an estimated price of 100 the two parties consequently went their separate ways and the zcam would never officially be released microsoft bought 3dv out in march 2009 and three months later they revealed project natal an xbox 360 peripheral using essentially the same technology after some cost cutting measures which downgraded the hardware it was released as connect in late 2010 one of nintendo's more infamous unreleased peripherals is the well-publicized wii vitality sensor this gadget was unveiled by satoru wata at e3 2009 where he briefly discussed its potential applications the vitality sensor was a small device which could read the user's pulse from their index finger it would connect to the wii remotes and send this information to the wii console allowing games to monitor their pulse during gameplay if iwata's comments are any indication nintendo saw the accessory primarily being used as an aid to lower the player's heart rate and help them relax he also discussed it being used to extrapolate other information from inside the body such as mood and anxiety the company even foresaw the potential for software using it that would help people fall asleep easier at its reveal no release information for the wii vitality sensor was provided but internal estimates expected it to arrive in late 2010. following e3 2009 no further details were provided for some time to come the lack of news was acknowledged by former nintendo of america president reggie fizzame in a march 2010 interview with kotaku the first thing we need to do is show our vision for how the vitali sensor can be used for a new and unique experience and we recognize we haven't done that yet he said our focus is to bring to life how he could utilize the vitality sensor and our goal is to do that sometime around e3 that goal would go unrealised the vitality sensor did not appear at e3 2010 their then evp of sales and marketing kami dunaway provided game set watch with a justification as to why this was as we thought about what we wanted to bring to e3 we realized we had a really packed agenda we also thought about the atmosphere at e3 which is noisy and adrenaline-filled and loud and stressful and it just didn't seem like the best environment to introduce a product that's really about relaxing so we decided we'd think about other venues that would be more appropriate as time went on this pledge wasn't followed through on either and updates from nintendo on the accessory stopped rumors swirled about its cancellation in 2010 but it would be another three years before the company would officially reveal its fate the project and its related software had been shelved amid concerns about the device's reliability and its viability as a commercial product in july 2013 satoru iwata explained to nintendo's investors we could not get it to work as we expected and it was of narrower application than we had originally thought nintendo had carried out extensive trials for the accessory throughout the twilight years of the wii within the company 100 employees tested the vitality sensor but it was found that it only functioned as intended for 90 of them the device was supposed to work by observing the waves produced by the pulse and interpreting this information to quantify how tense or relaxed users were however the technology was too simplistic to do that accurately for a hundred percent of users it therefore fell short of the water standards although he expressed the company's desire to one day try again if the technology allowed it we would like to launch it into the market of technology advancements enable 999 of 1 000 people to use it without any problems not only 90 of 100 people i actually think it must be one thousand of a thousand people but it is a little bit of a stretch to make it applicable to every single person did you also know that there's hidden data within ocarina ocarina did you also know that there's hidden data within ocarina of time that says i love you or that rare have outright stated that one of diddy kong racing's playable characters is a convicted criminal for tons more n64 game facts check out the video on screen [Music]

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Length: 59min 8sec (3548 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 16 2022