The buyer, a Swedish Nintendo prototype enthusiast by the name of Johan, emerged a couple of months later on the Digital Press message board to report about his new acquisition ( link).

That version, which had previously come from former Tips & Tricks magazine Senior Editor Jason Wilson, was snatched up just four days after Thomassen initially announced his desire to part with much of his collection. One was eventually found to be identical to the US release (thanks to the work of webmaster Matthew Callis ), while the other showed more promise given this description that accompanied it: “much harder and has small differences” ( link).

Among the Earthbound prototypes and unreleased game treasure were two copies of Super Mario Kart on Super Nintendo development hardware. The developers, of course, later ditched this messy mechanic of polluting the Mushroom Kingdom with oil spills (four words: Koopa Beach, Exxon Valdez) in favor of having the player toss more eco-friendly, biodegradable banana peels instead ( link).Ī few months after Konno spoke about the early history of Super Mario Kart, the prolific Dutch collector Niels Thomassen went to task on selling hundreds of his accumulated classic video game prototypes online in a giant fire sale, the likes of which had never been seen before or since. It wasn’t until three or four months into development when this sprite grew a mustache, and Mario and company officially joined the race. One of the first in-game items to follow was an oil can that could be thrown to spin out other karts. According to an April 2008 interview director Hideki Konno gave with Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, the first working prototype of what would eventually evolve into Super Mario Kart had not the famous Italian plumber behind the wheel but a nonspecific man sporting overalls.

After the single-player-only F-Zero launched alongside the Super Family Computer in 1990, Nintendo began tooling around with the idea of designing a racing game where two human-controlled drivers could compete on a course at the same time.

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