Zelda: The Hyrule Fantasy BETA?

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posted by sharc on Aug 11, 2009:

man, that is an amazing find. damn you to hell for it.

your info is correct; white disks like this are all internal nintendo dev equipment that were never circulated, and only turn up when something worms its way out onto the market. there was a pattern generator disk of the same kind on yahoo jp a few weeks ago; that auction for what is in all liklihood a test program of little to no interest beyond value as a curio ended at over 100,000 yen. the fact that it's a white disk plus the famous beloved franchise means you have one hell of a collector's item regardless of its contents.
 

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posted by djandy76 on Aug 11, 2009:

Hi sharc!

I follow the Yahoo! JP auctions more often than I do Ebay actually. I can't tell you how many interesting bits and pieces I've gotten from there.

A couple of years ago, I remember finding something really similar to this. It was a "SAMPLE" version (実演用サンプル版) of the same title. I tend to look for "SAMPLE" games, so that was a very nice find. As it turns out, I was totally outbid in the end, so when this came along, I just thought I'd throw caution to the wind and pay the asking price!

If this turns out to be the real deal, obviously I'm going to be rather pleased. In fact, the only thing that'd please me more would be to stumble across Biohazard 1.5!
 

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posted by drx on Aug 11, 2009:

Yeah, I look for サンプル's too, but somehow I missed this one. Can't wait for the screenshots
 

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posted by djandy76 on Aug 11, 2009:

Regarding the "SAMPLE" games, I was chuffed when I located the three relatively rare Square games: Chrono Trigger, Romancing Saga 3 and Seiken Densetsu 3.

I really wanted the Shounen Jump version of Chrono Trigger too, but the Buy It Now price was a little too steep.
 

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posted by drx on Aug 11, 2009:

These store samples of Chrono Trigger, Romancing Saga 3 and Seiken Densetsu 3 actually appear quite often on YJ.
 

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posted by djandy76 on Aug 11, 2009:

Yeah, I think there were a couple of Seiken 3 recently. One was missing the manual and the other was just the cartridge though.
 

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posted by djandy76 on Aug 11, 2009:

Just a quick update as I've taken a couple of extra pictures:






 

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posted by MatthewCallis on Aug 11, 2009:

I'm surprised no one has brought up the very high liklyhood that this is just a white disk in a Zelda case. Similar but not quite the same would be the Zelda some idiot put on a gold prize disk labels, data and all. It would be sweet indeed if it were real but the lack of important bidders bidding also puts doubt on it.

Above someone said white disk were internal dev only, which is somewhat misleading as worded; they are internal to development houses only not just Nintendo. All of the white disks I have are from 3rd party companies.
 

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posted by ASSEMbler on Aug 11, 2009:

It can't be beta if it's in the retail package..Game is already out. It would seem more credible if it was loose.
Probably just reused the disc, or possibly a warranty replacement.
 

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posted by djandy76 on Aug 11, 2009:

MatthewCallis,

That's a very good point. Actually, after adding the additional pictures above, it stuck me as odd to have a supposed dev disk in retail packaging... Not to mention the fact that it says "1986年2月28日初版", or "28th February 1986, First Edition", on it.

I'd like to assure everyone that I'm not attempting any kind of scam and that this is the exact package I received after the auction.

Other dev software I've collected (inc. Super Famicom, PS2 and PS3) tends to come precisely as ASSEMbler says, "loose".

Either way, it would be great if it were some sort of Zelda build, but I'm fully prepared to find something totally unrelated as well.