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[Eolz]

I was looking for some old Nintendo art some days ago, and I found on their japanese website a repertory of websites for most of the games they've published in the past. What's interesting about this, is that it's not only websites for the past 2-3 gens, but it's going back to more than 20 years ago.

I know it's not really news for some, but I just thought it'd be nice to share, as there's art from some old games like Game Boy Wars (Advance Wars Series)

or Metroid 2, and links to other dedicated pages with the same old content, like Panel De Pon (with old records, strategies, etc).

The official Fire Emblem website also has dedicated "museums" for its music and lore/games.

There's even still webpages for the Virtual Boy or the old Pocket Pikachu!

Any other companies still having websites for really old games? I know Capcom has still some from Gen6 for example, and some other japanese companies from Gen5 as well, but it seems very rare from Western companies, that usually update their websites, and either keep a small mention of an old game, or just remove it completely.

It's a pretty good initiative, and it'd be nice if more developers/publishers kept their old websites available for everyone, especially since it's usually just a matter of some Mb.
Game preservation is good and is gaining interest, but shouldn't it be important as well to do the same thing for websites and other marketing material?


If you have problems with the text lisibility for some reason, switching your browser settings to "Japanese (Shift_JIS)" seems to work well.

 

[Forkball]

I've never seen some of the art on that Metroid II site. Interesting.

Last year when I made an OT for The Mysterious Murasame Castle's NA debut, I found Nintendo's Virtual Console website about the game and was impressed at the large volume of information about a relatively obscure Famicom game. They basically made a mini walkthrough for the game.

 

[maxcriden]

That is so neat. Thanks for posting this! Love that Pocket Pikachu art.

 

[DOWN]

I love the old Wind Waker flash site.

 

[ToastyFrog]

Wow, I can't believe there's actually an official Metroid II site. The game predates the entire existence of the World Wide Web.

 

[Gameboy415]

I discovered some of these by accident when I was living in Japan a few years back and was pleasantly surprised that some of the super-old pages were still fully-functioning!

They also used to have a really cool official mobile site where you could download free wallpapers, icons, & ringtones in the pre-Smartphone days but I'm not sure if it's still around.

 

[Eolz]

Just checked a bit more in-depth the Panel De Pon website and this is a goldmine:
Concept Art
Music
Some sort of Pre - "Iwata Asks" interview (click on the pictures lower)
Fan-art / letters
etc

A shame it hasn't been updated since 2006, but it's really nice they didn't delete any content, despite some dead links. Just make a bit more sad about the lack of new games in this franchise, but still a nice feeling to see all of this.

I've never seen some of the art on that Metroid II site. Interesting.

Last year when I made an OT for The Mysterious Murasame Castle's NA debut, I found Nintendo's Virtual Console website about the game and was impressed at the large volume of information about a relatively obscure Famicom game. They basically made a mini walkthrough for the game.

Yeah it seems that they closed some old Famicom game pages to put their content in newer Virtual Console dedicated pages. That's really nice of them.

 

[Lindsay]

That Pocket Pikachu looks super cute!! If only the actual product had ears like that!


dothack.com gots links to a crapload of still living .hack sites including the first series of games!

http://www.dothack.com/hack/

I remember endlessly browsing that and the english version way back when! Those ancient hisghpec/lowspec standards... lol.

 

[TunaLover]

It's crazy and awesome at the same time they still have Metroid II web page.

 

[The Bankslammer]

Just checked a bit more in-depth the Panel De Pon website and this is a goldmine:
Concept Art
Music
Some sort of Pre - "Iwata Asks" interview (click on the pictures lower)
Fan-art / letters
etc

oh my goshhh this is incredible. I've been to the Panel de Pon site before but I never really explored it, I love all these.

Another cool resource, though not really of quite as much use to the non-Japanese speaking audience, is Shigesato Itoi's Nintendo content on his website. Some neat info and interviews dating back to the N64 era. Including the official Japanese translation of the DK Rap.

 

[Dragoon En Regalia]

Falcom's oldest websites, mainly the Lord Monarch Online and Vantage Master stuff, are pretty cool.

 

[Bluemercury]

I was looking for some spaceworld 2001 reels but i cant find them. The multi game reels that had soul calibour 2 as well as other games.these reels had some unique music on them...