A group of video game preservationists have reportedly acquired a handful of never-before-archived (that we know of) Kirby minigames that were distributed solely via Nintendo’s Super Famicom Satellaview system.
Satellaview games are especially challenging to preserve because, as video game historian and developer (and onetime Gamasutra editor) Frank Cifaldi pointed out on Twitter, they were typically downloaded (via satellite!) onto a special rewriteabe Super Famicom cartridge that could only hold one game’s data at a time.
Cifaldi, Matthew Callis and Steve Lin were among the video game archivists who banded together yesterday to raise money in an attempt acquire the Kirby minigames (part of a 10-minigame collection known as Kirby no Omocha Hako) from an unnamed auctioneer.
They were ultimately successful, and Kotaku now reports they wound up paying $813.08 for the auctioneer’s entire lot of 4 games. Prior to this only 3 of the 10 Kirby minigames were easily accessible to the public, and Cifaldi told Kotaku he and his compatriots intend to preserve their newly-acquired game ROMs (via emulation) when they receive them.
For a bit more insight into emulation and its value to the game preservation effort, check out Cifaldi’s GDC 2016 talk on the topic.