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Post by andycole on Mar 16, 2010 11:30:04 GMT 2
Well it wasn't the theoretical concept of Nintendo making a Tetris G&W that got me going.... It was the fact that the list actually pinned a model number on it, suggesting that development had gone further than just "hey, we should make a Tetris G&W" If it turned out Nintendo had made a Tetris prototype or perhaps even were ready to start mass producing Tetris G&W's.....that would be exciting Well, the TR-66 model number is another of those pieces of data which we all accept as likely but it's far from official. I don't think I've ever seen the model number mentioned officially, or even that the game was tetris. It's mostly speculation and I dare anyone to prove otherwise! the only 'official' evidence we have of any kind is the leaflet that showed a new game was on the way but it didn't mention what it was. So, now Ash has confirmed that the Japanese titles were the same as the English ones, where does that leave us? Back in the realms of guesswork! We should contact Florent and see where his list came from. Andy.
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Post by sinkbaek on Mar 16, 2010 23:58:47 GMT 2
Thanks for the lesson. The only reason I guessed Y is used for J in German is because my daughter's name is Jasmine, but is Yasmine in German. I suppose spelling it with an "I" would still sound like "Yasmine." You're welcome ;D But as Patrick said...the general rules for spelling and grammar, plus the phonetic rules of a language usually don't apply to names I think it's just a matter of fashion that germans tend to spell the name "Jasmine" with a "Y"...using "Y" instead of "J" just seems more exotic to germans i guess.... You see the same thing in Denmark - people are naming their kids stuff like "Maya" and "Nicoline"..instead of using the traditional danish spelling of the names - "Maja" and "Nikoline".... But the important thing is that, nomatter how you spell it, Jasmine is a beautiful name
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Post by sinkbaek on Mar 17, 2010 0:15:40 GMT 2
Well, the TR-66 model number is another of those pieces of data which we all accept as likely but it's far from official. I don't think I've ever seen the model number mentioned officially, or even that the game was tetris. It's mostly speculation and I dare anyone to prove otherwise! the only 'official' evidence we have of any kind is the leaflet that showed a new game was on the way but it didn't mention what it was. Sure.... But the fact that he mentions the model number tells us that he had a reason to do so..... So it's just a matter of asking Aaron were he got the model number from.... If he can lead us to a realiable soucre then we've got a pretty interesting new piece of information about G&W's.... If not - then we're just back at square one... In other words we only stand to gain from taking notice of the information in the list. It's not like we'd suddenly know less about G&W's if we didn't ignore the list Point being... You're absolutely right that we shouldn't read too much into the list... But if we don't follow the leads we get and try to find out new stuff about the games, then what's the point about talking about G&W's? Well.... That's one way of looking at it.... I'm more of a "the glass is half full" kind of guy though The way I look at it is that we've ruled out a possibility - we now know that the model numbers aren't reflecting the titles the games had, when they were released in japan. Just a few days ago we didn't know that. So yeah, you could say we're back in the realms of guesswork.... But you seem to forget that the number of valid guesses have been narrowed down.... Now this could just be the "half full glass" talking - but wouldn't you say, narrowing down the possible answers is a good thing when you're trying to find out what the facts are?
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Post by sinkbaek on Mar 17, 2010 0:25:33 GMT 2
That's a very creative theory, but I suspect you're thinking much too deeply about this. The "yellow = courage" idea is most likely something that was relevant hundreds of years ago and all but gone from the lexicon today. I've never heard of that before, and I'm willing to bet it would be news to the average Japanese person on the street. It's not uncommon in the game industry to tag a game early in development with a rough, tentative name for reference purposes until the game is about 70% near completion (or sometimes even closer to completion than that). It's probably safe to assume that Nintendo did this very thing with the Game & Watch series, and needed the model numbers before each game got its final name. Unrealistic deadlines often lead to this sort of thing. I think "Yellow Mario" might have been hastily attached to Super Mario Bros. early in the development process when they had sketched out an idea to use "Disk Kun" as a case for it, which is yellow. I know the special version has a higher model number than the others, but the light blue one came out in 1988 I think, while the special was given out as prizes in early 1987(?) The crystal screen was apparently released in 1986, but that doesn't rule out the possibility of the special being the very first of the three to be sketched out on paper. Now even I'm thinking too deeply about this. ;D Well....it was just a guess ;D Luckily we have someone who knows more than I do about Japan (which basically would be someone who knows anything about Japan ;D )... I didn't know the F1 version of SMB was made before they made the commercial version...and I have to admit that I didn't know about the Disk Kun mascot.... So you're obviously right that it makes more sense that they were simply reffering to the colour of the game and the Disk Kun case. It also seems to make more sense that the developers named the games early on...and then the marketing people took over and gave the games their final names when they were ready to be sold to consumers
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Post by ash888 on Mar 17, 2010 6:11:15 GMT 2
Thanks for the lesson. The only reason I guessed Y is used for J in German is because my daughter's name is Jasmine, but is Yasmine in German. I suppose spelling it with an "I" would still sound like "Yasmine." You're welcome ;D But as Patrick said...the general rules for spelling and grammar, plus the phonetic rules of a language usually don't apply to names I think it's just a matter of fashion that germans tend to spell the name "Jasmine" with a "Y"...using "Y" instead of "J" just seems more exotic to germans i guess.... You see the same thing in Denmark - people are naming their kids stuff like "Maya" and "Nicoline"..instead of using the traditional danish spelling of the names - "Maja" and "Nikoline".... But the important thing is that, nomatter how you spell it, Jasmine is a beautiful name Interesting points. Thank you both. And yes, I've always loved that name myself.
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Post by devster on Mar 17, 2010 10:00:01 GMT 2
Well, the TR-66 model number is another of those pieces of data which we all accept as likely but it's far from official. I don't think I've ever seen the model number mentioned officially, or even that the game was tetris. It's mostly speculation and I dare anyone to prove otherwise! the only 'official' evidence we have of any kind is the leaflet that showed a new game was on the way but it didn't mention what it was. Sure.... But the fact that he mentions the model number tells us that he had a reason to do so..... So it's just a matter of asking Aaron were he got the model number from.... If he can lead us to a realiable soucre then we've got a pretty interesting new piece of information about G&W's.... If not - then we're just back at square one... In other words we only stand to gain from taking notice of the information in the list. It's not like we'd suddenly know less about G&W's if we didn't ignore the list Point being... You're absolutely right that we shouldn't read too much into the list... But if we don't follow the leads we get and try to find out new stuff about the games, then what's the point about talking about G&W's? Well.... That's one way of looking at it.... I'm more of a "the glass is half full" kind of guy though The way I look at it is that we've ruled out a possibility - we now know that the model numbers aren't reflecting the titles the games had, when they were released in japan. Just a few days ago we didn't know that. So yeah, you could say we're back in the realms of guesswork.... But you seem to forget that the number of valid guesses have been narrowed down.... Now this could just be the "half full glass" talking - but wouldn't you say, narrowing down the possible answers is a good thing when you're trying to find out what the facts are? I have my doubts about Tetris being a game that was going to go on to the G&W. When they were launching the gameboy they needed a top game to go with it. If you have the game everyone wants you can then sell your hardware and then secure future sales of software on that hardware. Tetris was the most controversial game in history and even ended up with goverments getting involved. I watched a programme years ago on it, all very interesting. It was already out on other platforms. Nintendo wanted Tetris for the gameboy. And Nintendo bought the rights to the game from right under everyones noses! Here are some interesting links.. www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/features/tetris.shtmlwww.atarihq.com/tsr/special/tetrishist.html
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Post by andycole on Mar 18, 2010 14:15:00 GMT 2
I remember seeing that programme about Tetris but I can't remember many of the details. If they did indeed get Tetris specifically to launch the Gameboy then that blows the TR-66 theory away completely. They couldn't have been developing a game they had no rights to.
It's possible that the new game was something else but they just decided to call it a day at that point. After all, this was late 1989 when they were releasing Zelda (the flyer was promoting Zelda mainly) and that was the last game released before they finally ended it in 1991 with MB-108.
All of this could be in Flo's book, for all we know!
Andy.
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Post by sinkbaek on Mar 18, 2010 20:06:34 GMT 2
If they did indeed get Tetris specifically to launch the Gameboy then that blows the TR-66 theory away completely. They couldn't have been developing a game they had no rights to. They probably got the rights to develop Tetris for handhelds in general...not just specifically for the Game Boy. Having only the rights to port it to the Game Boy wouldn't make any sense. Nintendo used other methods for securing their exclusive rights to publish games for their consoles - for example trademarks and patents. Plus the fact that Tetris was the killer app at the time tells us that Nintendo didn't just have the rights to port it to the Game Boy - if that were the case, the game would have been ported to every handheld put on the market at the time So it could very well be that the people in charge of the G&W-line were developing a G&W Tetris. And then, when the Game Boy was ready to go into production, Nintendo chose to halt devolopment on the G&W-line, as it would only serve as competition to the Game Boy, if they kept on publishing new titles for the line.
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Post by devster on Mar 23, 2010 1:52:04 GMT 2
I remember seeing that programme about Tetris but I can't remember many of the details. If they did indeed get Tetris specifically to launch the Gameboy then that blows the TR-66 theory away completely. They couldn't have been developing a game they had no rights to. It's possible that the new game was something else but they just decided to call it a day at that point. After all, this was late 1989 when they were releasing Zelda (the flyer was promoting Zelda mainly) and that was the last game released before they finally ended it in 1991 with MB-108. All of this could be in Flo's book, for all we know! Andy. That's right. Also Tetris was already out and the gameboy was in delevopment before they got the rights. June 1985 Inspired by a pentominoes game he had bought earlier, Alexey Pazhitnov creates Tetris on an Electronica 60 at the Moscow Academy of Science's Computer Center. It is ported to the IBM PC by Vadim Gerasimov and starts spreading around Moscow. Pazhitnov gets a small degree of fame for his program. November 1988 The Game Boy is undergoing development. Nintendo of America head Minoru Arakawa wants to make Tetris the pack-in game; he enlists Henk Rogers to get the handheld rights to Tetris for him. Rogers contacts Stein but basically gets stonewalled by him, so Rogers decides to fly to Moscow to get the rights himself. Stein, sensing why Rogers asked for the rights, flies to Moscow as well. Robert Maxwell's son, Kevin, also decides to fly to Moscow to straighten out what is by now a large-scale licensing mess. The three men fly into Moscow at the exact same time. The final scorecard: Kevin Maxwell walks off with a piece of paper, Robert Stein with the arcade rights, and ELORG with conclusive evidence, thanks to Maxwell's assertion that any Famicom carts are pirates, that it never sold the video game rights. If Maxwell wanted those rights it would have to outbid Nintendo. Henk Rogers has the handheld rights and tells Arakawa at NOA that the console rights are up for grabs. BPS makes a deal to let Nintendo make Tetris for Game Boy; a deal that was ultimately worth between $5 and 10 million to BPS. March 15, 1989 Henk Rogers returns to Moscow and makes a gigantic offer for the console rights to Tetris on behalf of Nintendo - an offer that, although undisclosed, was high enough that Mirrorsoft did not try to match it. Arakawa and NOA chief executive officer Howard Lincoln fly to the USSR. March 22, 1989 A contract for the home videogame rights is finalized with Nintendo, which insists on a clause that the Russians would come to America to testify in the legal battle that would undoubtedly ensue after word of the contract comes out. The advance cash for ELORG is reported to be around $3 to 5 million. Belikov wires Mirrorsoft saying that neither it, Andromeda, or Tengen were authorized to distribute Tetris on video game systems, and that those rights are now given to Nintendo. The Nintendo and BPS executives have a party that night in their Moscow hotel room. July 1989 Nintendo's version of Tetris for the NES is released. About three million are sold in the US. At the same time, the Game Boy, with Tetris as the pack-in, is being sold. America gets Tetrisized. This ends the main history of Tetris; the lawsuit between Nintendo and Atari would continue to drag on and on and on (it was finally finished up by 1993). For those that didn't click on the second link - there is more.
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Post by sAner on Apr 3, 2010 10:48:43 GMT 2
MW-56 --> Mario Wine?? Give me a break! In the past we suggested Mario Works or Mario Working. Like Michael suggests, none of those lists are probably 'official'. They all seem to be guess-work, just as much as all the other alternative lists. Nice to be here again, btw! Regards, sAner Ps- In the past (when I was an active collector) I could easily remember all 60 modelnumbers. Nowadays I only remember about 20 of them.
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Post by mpanayiotakis on Apr 3, 2010 11:09:59 GMT 2
Hey Pieter, long time no see! I think that most of the model numbers are based on Japanese letters so trying to make sense of the english translation is futile.
What are you collecting these days btw, lens, cameras? ;D
Michael
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Post by ash888 on Apr 3, 2010 18:53:43 GMT 2
MW-56 --> Mario Wine?? Give me a break! In the past we suggested Mario Works or Mario Working. Like Michael suggests, none of those lists are probably 'official'. They all seem to be guess-work, just as much as all the other alternative lists. I think "Mario Wine" makes sense for a tentative title for Mario Bros, since they are apparently moving wine bottles through the factory and loading them into a truck. Didn't we just see a limited edition of Mario Bros. from the Netherlands put out by a wine company? I still think Flo's list is probably accurate (except Mario Balls is most likely Mario Ball). ;D
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