Before the era of digital media and online convenience, the distribution of game information and the latest screenshots was a bit more ornate. From sending promotional cassettes has take a photo of your computer screenthe distribution of these images could be misleading and convoluted. Now, one of the relics from that era is showing up in online auctions, with the potential to divulge new information to video game archivists.
The Hard4Games Preservation Channel noticed an increase in registrations for 33mm film slides from the 90s. These aren’t just any vacation photos. Judging by the information in these film slides, they come from Golin/Harris International, Nintendo of America’s media strategy company. They contain images of Super Mario 64 and given their apparent legitimacy, it is likely that these are official images distributed to publications.
Gamers of the era likely encountered these same images in magazines, sales brochures, or on the back of the box, but never with such high fidelity. Hard4Games claims that these slides, although so small, would equate to 4k to 6k digital resolution. That said, these are still images of Nintendo 64 games, so perfectly captured with the fidelity of a console that’s somewhat muddy in nature. Auction listings for these little pieces of gaming ephemera are already running into the hundreds of dollars, and the channel has already encountered game listings so new that they call their authenticity into question.
If these lists continue to emerge, they would present an opportunity beyond just high definition nostalgia. Many early prototypes of classic games, or games that never made it to the finish line, still received coverage, previews, and sometimes even reviews in the trade press. For some, their only records are postage stamp-sized screenshots reprinted at even lower quality. If there are still more slides to go around, it could yield undiscovered game secrets. Although promotional in nature, high-resolution versions of these documents could have great historical significance. And even if you don’t seriously believe in it, treat yourself to hundreds of visual assets the Video Game History Foundation retrieved from GameProsafes.