How many Famicom Network System software are there?

[Evie ❤✿]

Edit: Found many more here including many stock market network specific software! jironosuke.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/2015/07/post-8029.html

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Computer_Network_System

This content below is not new, however the subject is still very obscure. Whereas the (also Japan-only) Satellaview has been documented relatively well (though not exhaustively) by Nicovideo and dedicated fans overseas like Kiddocabbusses, and there is some Randnet (64DD) preservation (there seems to be a good amount but haven't researched it before, like FCNS which I heard of but only started reading about in the past week) and in more recent years Mobile System GB and Mobile GB Adapter analysis (however still not much preservation outside of Japanese Pokémon Crystal), I'm not sure if we know much at all about the original Family Computer Network System. This said, Mobile System GB analysis is a little like this too video wise, and it seems Famicom Network System like Mobile System GB didn't get by far as much support compared to Satellaview.

At a first glance without much knowledge, the range of software for Family Computer Network System may have been the least of Nintendo's online platforms (with Randnet only having ~10 titles(?) including the browser disk and some of the below may have not been for the general public?). I'm completely wrong, the blog post above reveals a lot more.

So far I've only found three Famicom Network System software (and information on one known prototype):

JRA-PAT: A horse-race betting software. According to a Nikkei Electronics article, this was the most popular software, which was used on 100,000 units used and actually even used up a a large portion (35%) of the online horse betting industry at the time, even though Nintendo was new to this and other companies had been doing online horse betting before.



Super Mario Club (Famicom Network System) (1991): I'm wondering whether this is related to the later Mario Club; the play test/bug checking team Nintendo subsidiary, which (seemingly) used to have the same logo too.




In this case, I get the impression that the Super Mario Club apparently was not for home use (but not sure if I misinterpreted the article). According to the article toy stores would use it to provide game reviews in like a network of participating stores also in the Mario Club, consumers could provide their own feedback, and Nintendo would analyse search history.

I found a copy on eBay which is going for a high price boxed! (~$200/£153/22,000 yen), even with writing on it.




Curiously, the back of the box states "These products are Strategic Products subject to COCOM regulations. They should not be exported without authorization from the appropriate governmental authorities." I'm not sure what the COCOM regulations mean, as Wikipedia talks about it in the context of a weapons ban during the Cold War.



PIT Motorboat Race: I'm unsure whether this software was not for the general public too, and all I can find are a couple of images of it; the best right now by eBay user liz2sell. Was it related to the real-world motorboat industry, or a game, or something different?




Confirmed prototypes:

Go:

According to the same Nikkei Electronics article, Hiroshi Yamauchi was a fan of the board game Go, having played it himself; and wanted Nintendo to make an online Go game. Unfortunately it was never released; (translation by GlitterBerri: “Consequentially, the game would require players to be connected to the phone line for an extended period of time. If the problem of data transmission fees wasn’t enough, we were also faced with the risk of users monopolizing the phone line.”)



The same article states there were four other prototypes, but I don't know if we know what they were. ✿

[nocturnal YL]

Very nice find! Of these, JRA-PAT and the one that shows stock prices from Nomura were the only ones I am aware of.

Most of these software are for betting and banking-related activities, and they became useless once the services expired, which is probably why it's not very well-documented.

[Evie ❤✿]

Thanks! ^^ Jironosuke did most of the work though, and all I did was search for one of the Japanese names and dig up the existing Wikipedia, GlitterBerri translation of that article, and that lucky eBay find.

The ones I'm curious about right now are two that might be considered Nintendo owned software, Famicom Anser and the Mario Club software discussed earlier.

"Famicom Anser" has a 1989 Nintendo copyright notice on the box art and cartridge; which based on known artwork/screenshots of the software series that usually don't mention a copyright for Nintendo, makes it seem to be a unique case).

The artwork makes me curious though;

If "anser" is a romanization but not the correct English spelling of "answer", maybe it was one of the mentioned (but not elaborated on) quiz software, or simply to do with answering a phone?

I don't know what the box art portrays (top image below)



, but if a telephone it seems not this sort(?):



Maybe it could also refer to a company named ANSER (Analytic Services, Inc.)

edit: This seems relevant actually. It mentions a Bank ANSER System famicom.suppa.jp/ish11.html

The cartridge and password entering screen also has a background featuring blocks reminiscent of Tetrominoes.






(I'm under the impression Nomura Securities generally both did both development (according to the Wikipedia article that states they did client/server/database work and possibly publishing based on two commercials I can find; www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XOuWGyXFL4 www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9gbIZY1WY4 being by them and not Nintendo; however it would make sense here as the aforementioned two are about stock trade software, not games).

Regarding the Mario Club software. I've speculated since telling Mariowiki.com about it, whether it became a software series for Mario Club members with just the Famicom Network System title as the first entry, as on further analysis there is apparently a Super Famicom Mario Club game, called "Super Mario Club Taikai You" according to game lists and emulation related sites, as is a reference to a Mario Club ROM (possibly for the Wii) in the code of Wii Sports.

On the company profile, it interestingly lists the foundation as July 2009. Nintendo have mentioned a Super Mario Club long before this though. According to the Nintendo Wiki hosted on Wikia, the earliest listed is Super Mario Bros. 3 (released between years 1988-1991 in Japan, North America, Europe); which is in close proximity to 1990/1991 (the copyright screens for the two versions documented on Jironosuke's site). Perhaps this is not a coincidence, and we might infer possibly Mario Club was actually formed around that time. Nintendo mentions a Mario Club long before 2009 as well, i.e. in the April 2000 edition of Nintendo Online Magazine




According to Chris Covell, there is some information about Super Mario Club in the March 8, 1991 publication of Famicom Tsuushin (the earlier name for Famitsu). In the context of obscure games in general, this page breaks down whether a volume covers a prototype or rare game, for instance, it talks about the cancelled NES game "Palps" in the October 3, 1986 edition (which NinDB covers, maybe including all the content from the same original source? or maybe there is some not as widely known (as obscure as it is already) information about to look into there). I remember on that thread about Wars artwork how there were magazine scans on archive.org; maybe we can locate the Famitsu magazines ✿.

[Evie ❤✿]

Hope double posts are OK here. I believed they are but not sure, and happy for a mod to merge it and delete if otherwise.

Update about the alleged "Super Mario Club Taikai You" Super Famicom cartridge and Wii Sports Mario Club mention:

Super Mario Club Taikai You

My theory is this is just either another name for the Nintendo Campus Challenge 1992 cartridge or a Japanese revision of it (with potential unknown changes or none at all).

I got the impression this likely means (is a romanization of) "スーパーマリオクラブ大会用" ("for Super Mario Club Tournaments"), which brings up search results including a claim it is a Super Mario World/Pilotwings/F-Zero compilation tournament ROM. At first I wondered whether it was about the company/this, but on hindsight it seems more likely not related to the Nintendo subsidiary/the Famicom Network System software) but the Japanese television show Super Mario Club, which I got the impression according to the Japanese Wikipedia article, that although it was sponsored by Nintendo, was not related. According to the same Japanese Wikipedia article, there was in fact an event in the original series called the Super Famicom Modern Three Kinds (スーパーファミコン近代三種), all about competing using that software, which was finally shown in October 1992. In fact, there was such a cart shown in a recent March 14 2019 video by kukun kun which seems to be an old recording of this very episode; at youtu.be/9U8FV_KGXDo?t=2690 , but it seems to be the same game essentially to "Nintendo Campus Challenge 1992", maybe just without the title screen shown in a cartridge that presumably made it out and was directly used in official events/somewhere high up (which may have been changed in different revisions)/or a different title screen/other unknown changes/or no changes, for the Japanese competitors. We can't see the exact title screen to the video linked for the Americans' side either, but art is shown for the Nintendo Campus Challenge (including the English text) suggesting maybe it took place before this Japanese event. According to that previous claim at the top of this paragraph though, the language of the game 'had become English' (if I interpreted it right); so possibly it had some difference in development not originally being English, or there was a separate Japanese one that became English? Or the claim could simply be false.

Alternative theories; it could be a firmware related thing for promotion of the Super Famicom Modern Three Kinds in the Super Mario Club television show which isn't the actual compilation cartridge, doesn't actually exist, is about another tournament in the show, or (without the signs) for something entirely different.

Wii Sports mention
From what I read about Super Mario Club (show) maybe there is a chance The Cutting Room Floor were making an assumption re: being about the play testing group of Nintendo, as at the eventual reboot of the show in 2010 (although Wii Sports was originally released in 2006) in that show Nintendo showed off Wii Sports Resort, so it's not impossible.*

However, it did say マリオクラブ (Mario Club) [used sometimes for the play test/debugging group in official Nintendo media including credits e.g. Super Mario 64 even before 2009] and not スーパーマリオクラブ (Super Mario Club). At the same time, maybe people named the show in short too.

*I have a few ideas about why it was mentioned if the reference is related to this show (while making a lot of assumptions but for what it's worth:); maybe the TCRF contributor(s) got the ini notes mentioning Mario Club from the ISO of the bundle disc (apparently this or similar)...:



;... so potentially they were extracted from there and the same notes do not exist in the original 2006 Wii Sports game, maybe even the show was planned to return a lot earlier, or this section could be on a red herring and it is actually about the Nintendo subsidiary Mario Club, maybe in relation to play testing; which also on hindsight, according to The Cutting Room Floor, a prototype of Ocarina of Time Master Quest for the GameCube has an unused Mario Club reference too "NOT MARIO CLUB VERSION"; so it's not out of the question for Mario Club members to have their own version as a recurring thing.

Endnote:
This is all a lot of analysis and I'm tempted to think the simple answers may be true (that the former is the Nintendo Campus Challenge 1992 cartridge but shown at the Super Mario Club television show, and if different the name "Nintendo Campus Challenge 1992" for it might still be equally correct content wise as it showed no Japanese text). For that reason, it would be interesting if the ROM got dumped (or is dumped now) as it may appear like an English Nintendo Campus 1992 cartridge, and people may still wonder what Super Mario Club Taikai You is.

There may be less reason to speculate that say, the Mario Club debugging team or something related to the Famicom Network System software's team after the Super Famicom release had a tournament then.

I don't know re: the Wii Sports thing though regarding what I said about it maybe being linked to the reboot, as the original was an innovative concept at the time and Nintendo had not used motion controls before, so maybe the Mario Club reference is a reference to the play-testing company, and they needed their own build for testing the game, the controls, and any bugs (e.g. happening when playing with the actions and remote), though it's interesting certain TV related settings come into play with the distinction of them not being used/not used between the two versions. ✿

[Nester the Lark]

May 2, 2019 22:29:41 GMT -5 Evie ❤✿ said:

Hope double posts are OK here. I believed they are but not sure, and happy for a mod to merge it and delete if otherwise.

I'm OK with double posts that are spaced out to once per day. (Heck, I do that, myself.) That way, it at least lets people know there's new content in a thread. But if it's any more often than that, I'd prefer if the post is just edited so as not to spam the forum.

[Evie ❤✿]

I collected more information about Famicom ANSER and added it to a wiki. It was linked with a service called Bank ANSER System (for withdrawing money) - I don't know how it would work given this was 1989. The logo appears not to be a phone/paperclip or any object, but simply some kind of signature mark, according to this auction image I found.



I still don't know details about the mark, but I found this; it mentions "ANSER Centers" which I'm unfamiliar with.

www.ntt.co.jp/kankyo/protect/label/anser.html