F/S Echo Delta Prototype

Did you go, or have any pictures or links to pictures from Spaceworld 2000? As for not throwing out any of that stuff, Nintendo definitely has thrown away those demo pods since it updates with brand new and clean stuff every time. I did see a photo of a floor at NA once that had some nice looking demo units and or arcade versions lined up and it was a nice room too but it looked like a choice few designs were saved and I wish I'd that picture now. Additionally, have I corresponded with you yet? there was one person who I hadn't matched up, do you use a snsonline account? Regardless I'll just say I find the most information in topics here hands down. In any case as an example

*Custom Robo
*Custom Robo V2
*Doubutsu Banchou
*Echo-Delta
*Catroots
*Teo

were some known n64 games in dev stages under the same management at or after Spaceworld 2000, and those were conscripted to the same resources but so they could produce a diverse variety of diverse games. And while the Beta carts themselves normally costed $500-1000 each to purchase depending on what could be put inside, constraints would require them to be overwritten for other projects, namely the other projects on the list of to do items. So what may have saw then might not be since companies did everything short of putting tracking bracelets on the carts to ensure a tight show. If you were to have saw Betas in carts were at a number of display stations, those may have been only loaner carts for the show from Nintendo (whom also were responsible for the pods), later which those betas' would have been put back into Nintendo's own assembly lines when the show's over. This could also explain how the ealier back the proto existed the greater chance there was that it was overwritten with a later work.

I think n64 Betas are pretty rare because of that. It's not all like NES betas where so many diverse protos existing here and there. With those N64 types you can be sure without doubt that there were other different games programmed on it previously. Although missing them now, this one had different label's at one time. This makes me wonder if that group was getting ready to turn it into something else.

I had heard, that although to be for 64DD, that somewhere there is someone with a Dobutsu Banchou on a n64 Beta like this.

 

arsenal...now that you mention it...
There was an ebay auction by that guy...cant remember his nick...nf2...ng2 something or another...
He was selling a prototype of Custom Robo or Custom Robo V2, together with an N64, N64DD dev unit, N64 Sound Tool AND 1 blue n64DD dev disk with something written on it. Doubutsu Banchou perhaps? I dont think the words on the disk was visible in the auction picture.

I havent heard the winner of the auction say if he has found anything on the 64dd disk but I think he lurks around here...from time to time...

Shiggsy

 

Maybe that one seller who usually has a titler with watermarked pics. There is this dm7 seller (the alphanumerics seem the same) who had a sound tool. Here also auctioned this funkyness too

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=3592&item=8128814139

 

No thats not the seller or buyer of the auction I was talking about.
The seller was that guy in Asia...his website starts with nf2 or something and the buyer was slaanesh.

After checking the auction pictures again, I see that there wasnt anything written on the 64dd dev disk, only a serial number.

Shiggsy

 

Perhaps you are referring to NFGman?

 

thats the one. thanks.

Shiggsy

 

Arsenal mate, me and Importaku have seen Echo Delta on Yahoo long before the one mentioned on this thread.I in fact was bidding for it almost two years ago.It was on sale at the same time as Animal leader proto which was was on cart by the way.None of the protos had labels but were on Yahoo jp.There was also an Animal Forest proto on sale the month before that and there was a teo proto on sale before that.They do come up on a yearly basis on yahoo jp and you should keep an eye on all N64 sections there.

As I said this was almost two years ago and the final price was nearly 100,000 yen!!!I have never seen any N64dd protos on there yet,though I am sure there have been.I myself have an n64 dev disk that I bought from a Uk codeshop.I don't know if there is anything on it,neither did the guy who sold me it,cause he just took it when the codeshop was shutting down.I don't have an n64dd dev unit to test it with ether.It is known that Shigesato itoi has Mother 3 on cart and 64dd fisk at various stage of completion and so does his team.But he holds the game so close to his heart,that i think he will always keep these for sentmental reasons.

Nintendo also keeps games like this stored away in case they want to ressurect the code on another machine.Think about it,games like Mini racers(which has been sold on ebay as a proto cart before) and echo delta could be ressurected and done on the DS, and games like Animal leader were ressurected on the Gamecube.I would imagine there is always one master copy and one backup kept in the vaults for all kinds of reasons.Whether it be to do stuff like mario waorld on the Gba or to do the famicom mini collection.Do not believe for one minute Nintendo just erase this stuff, there may be use for it at alater date.Since the DS is so close to the N64,perhaps we will see al kinds of stuff that was canned come out for it.Oh another project ressurected was URa Zelda.......I think I have made my point.

 

You're confusing things, these betas are not what's used to port to other machines. You need source code for that. I suppose potentially if the target machine is powerful enough it could emulate a rom image (Master Quest on GC is one example), but most of the time the codebase will need to be modified for the new platform. Echo Delta would need source code to be ported to DS.

 

I'm not confusing things,all I meant was that the levels and models used in that code could be used as a base for the new project.For instance Super mario 64 on DS is based on the N64 version.I did not mean emulating the code, just using the finished code as a base for the new project.Models, levels , level design etc....Like Silicon knights did with Eternal darkness.

 

Man I would pay that much for Teo (64DD) OR Catroots (N64). :smt082

I have an inkling that after the subgroup's contracts were up that Marigul would collect all of the N64 Beta carts that it contracted out. At the same time I was able to get with Echo Delta, another Beta cart of a different game and on the back is a label that has a Marigul logo. There is writing that looks like it is a final and a friend of mine has it now is checking it out and might buy it. The writing and the Marigul logo point to that it was collected from a subgroup afterwards and these different games that were retrieved were to be the final ones remaining on cart and hidden in the vault as opposed to being what was compiled as source code somewhere.

I'm also visualising that there may be top or back label on the more recent Echo Delta Proto to appear that I've been hearing about and I'm pretty sure that this may be a version that was taken directly out of the chain when it was at Clever Trick. I could say more but it wouldn't look right without everything being told and I'm short on time. Then there is something's I'm not allowed to say. I'll tell more as it comes to me but some of which such as the other game, not unless the other person decides he's not keeping the different game. I'm sure you all know how situations like this can be. I should be so prompt as to to read up on the whole Biohazard 0 N64 prototype story so I'll act accordingly and keep those things in mind. I'm finding out more as we speak.

Nintendomad, fast-forward to those auctions you mentioned right now. That was back when the Protos were being let go around that time by the companies when I got my stuff and the information about it. The Animal leader Beta sounds just like the one that someone else got, it was on a N64 cart and without label. The Echo Delta sounds a lot like mine too without a label. I don't know if they ended up in the same place but where mine came from a lot of stuff by Marigul was being taken up. It may have been that person selling on consignment and that could've been my Echo Delta. I don't know who got it but an Animal Leader without a label was available from them right before I was able to get it and the time of year matches up about right being a little later on.

Nintendomad, also did you know Teo was 64DD, it definitely was never retooled for N64 like was the case with Dobutsu Banchou. Marigul's n64 section was working on Catroots at the time while Teo was being done on 64DD. To clear any confusion those were two games that Marigul itself developed, any of the others were done under it's subgroups. And along with Echo Delta, these three games were tho only ones that never saw a market release from this organization's era. Animal leader was to have been on the 64DD and Nintedomad confirmed with me that there is an Animal Leader Beta cart. So this could be an exception in that N64 dev could be more compatible with 64DD, which it would seem. But maybe it's actually a Beta cart from after the decision was made that it would no longer be made for 64DD but instead for N64. Sort of like the opposite of how that Ridge Racer style game that Seta was making that was supposed to be a N64 game but then planning wanted to make it on 64DD.

 

This has me wondering a lot about what different medias 64DD Betas have (been) taken on. Anyway I see your guy's points. Also SM64 DS is going to be especially of interest to me, not only because I'll need to find someone to play the multiplayer stuff with but also because I never played past the second level of SM64. I'll be sort of like the little kid playing Mario 3 for the first time on Game Boy Advance. Additionally I too noticed in reading it somewhere that SMM64 DD is modeled after the original SM64 designs like you said.

 

The Teo Beta was definetly ona prototype cart,I know it was meant to be on a 64dd disk,I have an article about that in front of me, but the proto that was for sale on yahoo jp was definetly a cart.The animal leader beta was a proto cart as well,exactly like yours, even with a ripped off label :-D

As for how 64dd beta code would take place,I would imagine if it had not had the writability features added yet,then it would be on a cart ala URA zelda and it's ability to go on a non writable disk.Remove the writable code and then it could go on a cart,I PRESUME!As we know Starfox 64 was shown running on a 64dd at spaceworld 96,so why not vice versa.I find it hard to believe that code was so hard to swap between the two as zelda 64 changed platform a couple of time from dd to cart and the coders would have been mighty disgruntled having to do code from scratch over and over.

I'll forward you any links I get to proto stuff from now on Arsenal and we must chat sometime, you like me like your Nintendo stuff.I must add I have dreamed for years of playing Echo Delta and hope it is released to the community one day as I cannot affoard the proto at this stage.

Another intresting point is that Super mario 64dd was multiplayer and this was stated in many , many interviews by Miyamoto,, so perhaps the DS version is the DD version.

Yet another intresting point is that they had Mario Artistaint studio running on cart several times in a watered down form of course.

 

And this wasnt Mario No Photopie?

Shiggsy

 

Nintendomad: well, in fact, there is quite a difference from the programmers point of view between N64 cart games and DD games (some browsing thru official docs confirmed that :-D ). The cartridge contents are directly accessible by the CPU, and are thus like read-only RAM. The disk, however, is not random-accessible and hence, data has to be loaded from it, and into memory (probably why the DD requires the expansion pak, and why N64 games - few exceptions - don't have loading times whereas disc based games do, ie AES vs NGCD). So porting a game between the two systems requires quite a lot of work (less so if they use an on-cart filesystem like Goldeneye does), but apparently Ninty worked on some clever solution or maybe they just worked 20 hours a day :smt042

PS: this you would've known had you bought the Xgamestation and read its docs :smt043

 

No it wasn't Mario no Photpi Shiggsy...I think I know the difference.(Mario Artistaint studio, hmmm that sounds like the cart game that uses digital pictures :smt009 )

Thanks for that info Anti pasta,maybe Nintendo did have a neat solution for the problem, otherwise this could have beeen one of the many reasons Zelda kept getting delayed.

 

Nintendomad, I wonder if they were to have had what was written for Teo at one point, not on a Dev Disk, but on an external dev system computer HD that could have been used with a 64DD dev system also. Could then have a flash gangwriter for N64 Betas been also hooked into the setup with a HD, and just and have been used to load it to a N64 cart from there?

Maybe it wasn't totally compatible but was just possibly a means of transport from one computer to another one somewhere else. I'm not sure it could work unless 64DD games were born as N64 written programs and then naturally moved to 64DD as part of the natural 64DD writing process (again would help if I looked at official docs.) or maybe most or all 64DD games in the early stages were at one point compatible to run on N64 Beta media before being stylized beyond what N64 could handle.

Hey Antipasta, :smt082

It may have been possible they did indeed so find out a clever way to do this. When the guy's making Teo at Marigul were on it they did have their hand in these development groups under them running N64 and 64DD development. I would say that at that point they were on Nintendo's level of of in house workmanship. So they definitely were in a unique position pool their ideas. In that capacity I don't see another situation during that era where a group would have had access to so many innovational ideas and techniques. (And something about how Clever Trick got its name.) :smt045

 

Everyone, please keep these discussions up, it is amazingly interesting. :-D

I think I nabbed the pictures from the last Yahoo! Japan auction for Echo Delta, the one that finished at 66000 yen - if anyone wants, I can post them. Nothing too terribly interesting, an image of the flash cart and title screen, but still...

Man, I'd love for Teo to have been released, finally there would have been a cool use for the microphone besides that stupid Pikachu game.. :angry

 

rayer: Pikachu Genki De Chu
It jump started things that it was finished so quickly and became a hit actually. Then work on Teo began because it's predecessor was popular. And before I forget a link to pics that are up. http://photobucket.com/albums/v489/Arsenals/