An eBay listing offering a long-lost Pokémon game has been spotted, and its rarity has the seller seeking a $9,000 bid.
PokéPark Fishing Contest DS was an official release by Nintendo in 2005, but it was only distributed at certain locations in Japan and Taiwan as a downloadable demo. It was also only available for a few months.
The game takes place on a river that flows into the sea, with players able to reel in a number of different aquatic Pokémon. Scores are determined by the size, level, and rarity of each catch.
The eBay listing describes the item as a “Nintendo DS Development/Test Cartridge,” and has a starting bid of €7,999 (around $9,100).
“Acquired as part of a private lot, no further history or provenance documentation is available,” the description reads.
“It’s in working condition and when tested on a retail Nintendo DS, it boots to a Japanese-language screen indicating a high-score ranking communication program.”
Pokémon fans are hopeful that whoever acquires the cartridge will share its contents online so that it can be preserved and played by others. Some fear, however, that it may not contain the entire game.
“I can’t be sure if it’s actually a cartridge that has the ability to distribute the game itself,” said Japanese X user @Tiramisu090401 (via machine translation).
“The biggest reservation the preservation community has is this mention of a ‘sub-card,’” said X user @RexProfessor.
“There is a very good chance that the actually [sic] fishing rally may have been stored on a GBA cartridge & what we see here was only used to share the game wirelessly and/or accept leaderboard submissions.
“Without the actual game this may only be an interesting paper-weight.”
No bids have been made at the time of writing. The auction will end on August 2nd. Make sure to keep an eye on it if retro gaming is an interest of yours — this is definitely one to watch!
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Written by Reece Heather
A veteran Zelda Universe editor and First-class journalism graduate, Reece emerged with a Nintendo 64 and a lifelong obsession after a narrow escape from Santa’s Naughty List in 1998. Outside of games, he’s reading Punisher comics, being bossed around by his cocker spaniel, and cornering innocent bystanders to rant about the importance of game preservation.
