Unreleased Nintendo GameCube web browser

[Evie ❤✿]

www.deviantart.com/connorrentz/journal/The-GameCube-s-Lost-Internet-Browser-Discovered-799654842?comment=1%3A799654842%3A4741636731

I noticed this on The Cutting Room Floor's to-do list. Someone found information about an unreleased web browser for the Nintendo GameCube (which did feature some online games but not any released browser I think?), datamined from the Gekkan Nintendo Tentou Demo Discs.

Apparently this would have been based on the EGBrowser by the 1996 Californian company Planet Web? PlayStation 2, Sega Dreamcast and Sega Saturn were also related to it(?)





The article mentions Nintendo's other early web browsers, but I noticed it missed Mobile Home Page; the Mobile GB (Game Boy) Adapter one.

Some of these browser assets also look curiously similar to iQue NetCard assets; apparently a cancelled Game Boy Advance peripheral for online play from the Gigaleak, which the unreleased Pokémon MMO pitch may have used, but I've been trying to stay away from leaks (except what you can find by analysing the code of retail games and things like this) and don't research them anymore. There might be more information on places like Twitter though.

[nocturnal YL]

It's sent to people as part of the demo disc, so it's not really unreleased. An HTML viewer that's used only for on-disc contents isn't something Nintendo would advertise to the public. Nintendo usually don't talk much about the behind-the-scenes of their products in details, and it's not even something used in the commercially released games.

[Evie ❤✿]

Sept 2, 2020 9:13:29 GMT -5 nocturnal YL said:

It's sent to people as part of the demo disc, so it's not really unreleased. An HTML viewer that's used only for on-disc contents isn't something Nintendo would advertise to the public. Nintendo usually don't talk much about the behind-the-scenes of their products in details, and it's not even something used in the commercially released games.

Ah OK. I think they meant it's unused even in the demo disc. (Or maybe I misinterpreted the article, sorry if I wrongly said it's unreleased/unused). Though if it is unused because this isn't a retail product anyway, maybe it could be something that was not unused but only used in-house.

[nocturnal YL]

The way the article put it, it seems that some of the later Japanese demo discs featuring this browser were sent to Club Nintendo members (who were eligible and asked for one). So it still counts as public-facing, just not something they sell as paid products and thus have some leeway in terms of quality.