What are the remaining holy grails of videogame collecting?

You all knew this would happen...

Saturn Virtua Fighter 3 wasn't just nearing completion - it was finished on two separate occasions, as I've said too many times for me to even remember now:

Based on the various internal sources that have spoken up on the subject (as opposed to the likes of AM2's own Shin Ishikawa and Hiroshi Kataoka, who maintain the official party line that it never existed), I've counted at least four known builds that may still be out there. First of all, we have the Aoi character movement demo, which somehow made its way to Sega's US offices and was seen by several people there, not to mention one second hand account from a member here. Next, there's the early version the Japanese magazine Saturn Fan reported on some time in mid 1998, though I've yet to see a scan of this article or confirmation it even contained any visual evidence. However, it's claimed screenshots from a brochure Sega handed out at the Tokyo Game Show that year were taken from this same mid-development era prototype.

After this, AM2 handed a completed version of the game to management for approval, but this was ultimately rejected because of the Dreamcast's upcoming launch and concerns a significantly compromised Saturn edition of VF3 would somehow affect sales of Genki's own 128-bit treatment. Despite this outcome, Yu Suzuki personally requested that a small group within the studio continue improving Saturn VF3, resulting in the so-called Revision 2, again turned down when offered for release in September '98. The official cancellation date of September 17th that has been quoted MUST have come from somewhere, and I'm assuming the last build remains in storage along with documentation that proved helpful in leaking this key detail. We even had confirmation right here on this message board that six industry insiders did indeed get to witness this copy behind closed doors at the 1998 ECTS, plus there's considerable evidence a similar backstage playtesting session occurred during a Japanese event around the same time.

Unfortunately, there are few leads as to where any remaining discs may be stored now. Sega's American and European departments have very little preserved material from before the corporate reshuffling of around ten years ago, which I've learned first hand from my enquiries. Valuable items that were known to be in the possession of staff there are now regarded as missing forever, though due to its much greater secretive nature I've yet to determine if Sega of Japan suffers from the same lack of care when it comes to its archives. On the other hand, we've already been told that original assets for the likes of Virtua Fighter 2 (Model 2) and Panzer Dragoon Saga have been misplaced or intentionally wiped. Either way, the fact remains that it's likely there are other similarly large gaps we can expect to hear about in future years when Sega goes to reissue more titles from this period in the company's history.

The 32-bit prototype of Shenmue was clearly available in some form back in 2001 when direct feed video was edited into that teaser clip that featured as an unlockable extra with Shenmue II, but analysis suggests this might have been taken from VHS footage retained for posterity. I've noticed the rumoured tape artifacts myself, and based on this I must therefore question if that was the only content relating to Shenmue on the Saturn that could be found. Then again, what of the playable code that's also claimed to be in circulation? I seriously doubt this ever existed, but I'm more concerned for the moment with Saturn VF3. Can we really be expected to believe that nothing survived, especially considering how many sightings there were at one point? In the past I discussed the possibility of at least one person who a fellow Sega colleague absolutely confirmed as having a personal copy, but I was privately requested to cease repeatedly bringing up this person's name as they are still active elsewhere and wouldn't be able to help fulfil our dream of getting to finally play this game even if they wanted to. Ironically, a quick search proved it's very much possible to determine their identity, so really this demand hasn't worked!

Concluding for now, perhaps the actual reason AM2 staff who were around back then prefer not to comment or dismiss the existence of Saturn VF3 is because they're prevented by non disclosure agreements? To my knowledge, only one key member of the development team has yet to be interviewed on this matter. Yu Suzuki might have openly spoken with Kikizo journalists under the strict instruction any mention of Saturn VF3 remained unpublished in the resulting article, but has anyone even managed to chase down Keiji Okayasu? In fact, what exactly has he done since leaving AM2 soon after the completion of the first Shenmue? Also, while it may be an extremely long shot, there was also Akira Yamanaka, who designed quite a lot of promotional artwork for AM2's products around the same time Saturn VF3 was still an active project. I'm willing to bet he was responsible for the stark white Japanese cover art that I've read about, as described by someone who claims the finished Revision 2 master disc, sleeve and booklet templates were returned from a pressing plant barely hours before they were scheduled to be mass produced for an imminent release - was this one really cancelled that late in the game, so to speak?

Sorry, everyone - you know what I can get like when somebody brings up Saturn Virtua Fighter 3!

 

The SNES/SFC CD/Play Station would be at the top of my list too, right next to any possible prototypes of Ocarina of Time DD expansions Nintendo might have locked away somewhere. Reality tells me they will probably never see the light of day.

 

Biohazard Zero N64

or the CPS4 Prototype from Capcom (whatever it was at the time)

 

We got the really basic playable demo of Sonic Xtreme but any other builds would be wonderful. And a Sonic 1 beta, I realize there is a lot of prototypes we haven't come across but when DRX did that enormous proto release, there were plenty of Sonic games but not a single Sonic 1 proto to be found. I mean there's what, 2 major prototype releases of Sonic 2 available? The Nick Arcade one even proves that Sonic 2 is in fact based off of Sonic 1, but I think a Sonic 1 proto would be really interesting to see.

 

The horror!

I'm big into Rare and they have just a ridiculous number of canceled projects. Dinosaur Planet and Conker are those N64 holy grails, but then there's Donkey Kong Racing (not that it got too far in development supposedly), the several versions of Sabreman Stampede, Project Dream, many many more. The mysterious Banjo X which may or may not have been the Banjo-Kazooie remake on original Xbox. Tons we've never even seen but had good amounts of time put into them like Urchin, Perfect Dark Core, & Kameo 2!! Madness. Really easy for me to space out thinking about any of it and start wondering what could have been, ha.

 

The Ocarina of Time DD expansion was by and large released on the Gamecube as a preorder bonus for Wind Waker.

 

The PC version that was used for all the videos would be cool.

There are also plenty of PSX prototypes that would be cool to see. I think a DTL-H505 turned up recently but you could buy a decent car for what they wanted.

 

Unfortunately, that was not anywhere close to what was planned going by past interviews with Miyamoto. Plus, others have gone over the ROM and found it to be nothing more than a simple level edit and nothing significant was added.

 

+1 for VF3 on the Saturn. I remember being crushed when it was cancelled, was absolutely hanging out for it back in the day!

 

Not only that but both Master Quest and the Ocarina of Time ROMs are roughly the same size. Ura Zelda was supposed to add roughly 32-64 more megabytes to the game from what I read seeing as I think it was the original release cartridge of Ocarina of Time had the DISK icon if you either used a GameShark or had your console plugged into Nintendo's Disk Drive add-on. Sure, Master Quest is the same size and such, but even if it is the remnants (by that, what little is left of the expansion); I can almost guarantee that if it the actual expansion in whatever state it was in were to be released or leaked, people would pay top dollar for it.

 

My only personal Holy Grail for years was the Pioneer Laseractive, now I own two. Hopefully the working model will help me fix the malfunctioning one.

Give me a few weeks and I'll give you a massive list of shit that is known to exist (pictures, video, etc) and hasn't been released.

 

Where did this come from to begin with? Only example that comes to mind is that Escapist article that talked about Assembler some years back and just made an off comment about protos people could be hoarding, including Saturn Shenmue. Way they worded it made it sounded like it was some sort of known fact when they were really just talking out of their asses.

 

What about the Dreamcast 2? (Har har...)

 

The first known BioHazard build, which included co-op.
Any unreleased and unknown BioHazard 2 build would be welcome.
Shenmue for SEGA Saturn.

 

Don't forget the handheld :3

 

Dee Dee Planet for the Dreamcast, there have been comments over the years but nothing concrete. We know it was finished, there are rumours that some ex-Sega employees have/had copies, but nothing so far.

Although, talking of grails, it's interesting that the Toejam and Earl proto has survived on a devkit - it brings fresh hope for other cancelled projects. Digging through the forums I remember Legit mentioning that he found the files for Actua Soccer (I think that's the right title?) but I've no idea what happened to them... Similarly, Yakumo had some NFL (?) game that he hyped up a while back, again, it has never seen the light of day since. Nothing exciting, but it would be interesting to know what happened to them in the end?

 

Coming to my mind:
http://segaretro.org/Master_System_Floppy_Disk_Drive

European SG-1000

And so many other things to be discovered

 

A working Sega Genesis/Mega Drive VR Headset! Has one ever been found?

I know there are games out there, I have a work in progress title and a test cart but would love to give on a bash with the actual headset.

 

I didn't actually own the disc unfortunately. The footage was provided to me by a very nice guy in the development community. The code is actually for the Naomi but does run perfectly fine on the Dreamcast. Here's the link - http://www.segagagadomain.com/movie-pages-dc/nfl-blitz99.htm

 

D2 M2 (or the build of D2 for DC previewed at the World Premium event)
Tomb Raider AoD E3 build/s
Perfect Dark Zero Xbox Builds
Hannibal PC
Resident Evil 3.5
Fear Effect Inferno

Those are my personal ones anyway