World of Nintendo
Image: ArtofNP

There's a little part of us that's always been obsessed with TV shopping channels. Not necessarily as a way to buy anything, but to watch the hosts struggle their way through live demonstrations and lengthy info dumps about products they've probably never heard of before. Because of this, we were overjoyed when we saw that the Interactive Art Collection and Art of Nintendo Power had recently uploaded a never before seen video of QVC's 'World of Nintendo'.

This hour-long segment on the QVC network debuted on August 20th, 1994, and featured video games like Super Metroid, Wario Land, and The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past in between adverts for vitamins, cursed dolls, and gold jewelry.

QVC host Bob Bowersox, known for his cooking shows, led the segment from a Nintendo-themed set, complete with a 3D Mario statue standing off to one side and a couple of bemused kids playing the games on monitors for authenticity.

It's an amusing watch, not just for the odd way that Bowersox tries to sell the games (which is clearly targeted at parents who hadn't touched a game before), but for the interviews with the Nintendo gameplay counselor and the occasional callers. Perhaps the most interesting discovery from the video, however, is related to Illusion of Gaia, Quintet and Enix's RPG for the Super Nintendo.

As Art of Nintendo Power notes on Twitter, the segment shows that the game actually sold 3000 copies on QVC before general release in the US. Bowersox introduces the game as a world premiere, which is a bit misleading when you consider the game was already out in Japan at this point. But nevertheless, those who preordered the game on QVC in the US would get the game shipped to them on September 7th, while everyone else would have to wait until September 20th or the following year (as was the case for us Brits).

If you fancy taking a trip back to the 90s, you can watch the full video below.

Have you ever ordered anything video game related off QVC? Let us know in the comments!

[source youtube.com, via twitter.com]