Treasure Trove Of Over 200 Undumped GBA, DS, DSi And 3DS Beta Carts Is At Risk

"We're hoping to at least be able to hand pick some carts"

by Damien McFerran 11:30am

Treasure Trove Of Over 200 Undumped GBA, DS, DSi And 3DS Beta Carts Is At Risk 1 — *Image: Damien McFerran / Time Extension*

A selection of over 200 beta GBA, DS, DSi And 3DS carts could be at risk of falling into the hands of a private owner, it has been revealed.

The non-profit preservation group Video Game Preservation Museum was in discussion with the seller about dumping and preserving the carts. However, it was revealed yesterday that the seller backed out of the arrangement after being contacted by other individuals, presumably with higher offers.

"A rather unfortunate update," said VGPM's social media account yesterday. "People have contacted the seller, and we're not able to back these up anymore. We have tried making offers above £25,000 to save the carts, but this has been rejected. We're hoping to at least be able to hand pick some carts from the lot."

Treasure Trove Of Over 200 Undumped GBA, DS, DSi And 3DS Beta Carts Is At Risk 2 — *Image: Discord / Obscure Gamers*

At the time of writing, discussions on the Obscure Gamers Discord server reveal that there may be some way of buying the more interesting cartridges for preservation rather than the entire batch.

It has also been revealed that the same seller has multiple development kits they intend to sell.

[source bsky.app]

Damien has been writing professionally about tech and video games since 2007 and oversees all of Hookshot Media's sites from an editorial perspective. He's also the editor of Time Extension, the network's newest site, which – paradoxically – is all about gaming's past glories.

I'm gonna get heat from this but...the whole about thing about game preservation isn't all rainbows and gold. There's always going to be problems when it comes to game preservation. Not when copyrights, greed, and the cost of maintaining servers putting a strain on many options.

And at this point...are people really preserving games out genuine desire? But aside from this...I just don't care about game preservation very much I'll admit. I preserve of what i want to preserve particularly and specifically. I'll leave the job preserving every game, beta games and gamebuilds to someone else. Sorry to be blunt but at this point I don't care. But the good thing is that everyone else can. though I will say film preservation is much easier than games themselves.

2
LJW1912
1:29pm

'Bloke intends to be selfish for cash' might be a more appropriate headline

@LJW1912 Pretty much why the seller backed out from the deal. Other people were contacting said seller were offering more tempting amount of money seems like.

Honestly...at the end of the story greed from both sides will always ruin everything. If I was the one who had those carts and everything...and they offered me that amount...I'd sell it to them in a heartbeat. i could live comfortably with that amount & never be late on rent & bills

4
slider1983
1:44pm

If there's money to made you can bet people will bid for the highest value.

5
N64-ROX
4:13pm

Interesting to see real numbers thrown around. If the guy turned down £25,000 then I wonder what this third party is paying, and what their intentions are.

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