We have some remarkable news for fans of Nintendo's early arcade history. A retro collector has recently come into possession of rare 16mm film reels of Nintendo's early arcade coin-op Wild Gunman (not to be confused with the NES black box title of the same name), and has since gone to the incredible effort of producing a working version of the game, which he intends to show off at an event in Ontario, Canada.
Callan Brown (better known as 74XX Arcade Repair online) shared how he first came across the reels in a new video, entitled "WILD GUNMAN: Resurrecting Nintendo's First Coin-Op on its 50th Anniversary." In this video, he went over the background of the machine and its significance, as well as the incredible steps he took to not only get the film reels properly scanned but to develop his own recreation of the classic machine with modern technology.
Wild Gunman, in case you are unaware, is the name of an early arcade coin-op game, designed by Nintendo legend Gunpei Yokoi, which was released in Japan in 1974. It featured actual 16mm footage of Wild West gunmen projected onto a screen, with a flashing signal indicating to players when to draw a physical pistol from a holster and shoot back. It was one of a small number of 16mm games released by Nintendo during this period (other games included Sky Hawk and Battle Shark), and was notably introduced in North America, thanks to a surprising partnership between Nintendo and the original Sega of America.
Because of the cabinet's original purchase price (the machine was believed to cost "between three and six times the amount of a typical arcade attraction") and its use of degradable film, working versions are exceptionally hard to come by today, while actual footage of the 16mm is also in short supply, appearing in the odd YouTube video, an experimental film from 1978, and in the background of the "raunchy comedy" Gas from 1981 (as spotted by historian Kate Willaert). Footage from one of the four reels (Reel D) was recovered in 2021 by the filmmaker Ben Solovey, but now, thanks to Brown, we have newly scanned footage of B, D, and part of A, representing a little over half of the available reels.
If you're wondering how Brown came across the reels, he gives a brief recap at the start of the video.
"One day, in July 2025, as I was browsing the arcade parts category on eBay, I came across an auction that didn’t make a lot of sense to me: a set of Nintendo-branded film reels.
"The date mentioned of 1976 would make them 50 years old, far older than any Nintendo video game I was familiar with, but I recognised these quality control stickers from other Nintendo products, like my Donkey Kong Jr. cabinet and my Vs. Dual System, so I was convinced they were genuine... I knew there was something special here, so over the next 6 months, I became obsessed with two words: Wild Gunman."
Brown intends to showcase his recreation of the game at the 2026 Ontario PinFest (taking place between May 30th and May 31st 2026), and will be showcasing the game alongside other Nintendo Wild Gunman merchandise, such as the 1972 Wild Gunman toy and a Custom Gunman Toy from 1976 (which you may recognise from a classic WarioWare mini-game).
You can watch the full video here. We'd like to thank Brown for sending the video along to us.