Nintendo Space World

Its three days of high-energy party atmosphere was the primary venue for Nintendo and its licensees to announce and demonstrate new consoles, accessories, and games.

Anticipated and dissected each year with hype and exclusivity, it was a destination for the international video game press, with detailed developer interviews and technology demos.

Some major exhibits were teased and then never seen again, leaving fans and press to maintain hype and inquiry for years, as with the Super Mario 128 demo spectacle, the controversial art style of the Wind Waker teaser video, Mother 3 (EarthBound 64), and a litany of lost 64DD games.

[6] The Super Famicom had been on the market for a few months and much attention was given to its games including Final Fantasy IV and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.

[17] Gamers who previewed the system complained that the Mario demo was not realistic enough, was not in full color, and did not motion-track the image when players turn their heads.

[18] In the lead editorial of Electronic Gaming Monthly following the show, Ed Semrad predicted that the Virtual Boy would have poor launch sales due to the monochrome screen, lack of true portability, unimpressive lineup of games seen at Shoshinkai, and the price, which he argued was as low as it could get given the hardware but still too expensive for the experience the system offered.

[19] Next Generation's editors were also dubious of the Virtual Boy's prospects when they left the show, and concluded their article on the system by commenting, "But who will buy it?

Popular Mechanics described the scene where "hordes of Japanese schoolkids huddled in the cold outside an exhibition hall in a small town near Tokyo, the electricity of anticipation clearly rippling through their ranks".

[22] Nintendo Power interviewed Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka about the development of Super Mario 64, Zelda, and game philosophy.

[24] This included the playable prototypes of Super Mario 64 and Kirby Ball 64, and a videotape containing a total of three minutes of very early footage of eleven other Nintendo 64 games.

Spectacular scenes of a surprisingly large Link clad in polished armor are most likely to end up in cut-scenes rather than representing the actual play.

[41] Nintendo's Director of Corporate Communications, Perrin Kaplan, made the company's first official launch window announcement for 64DD, scheduled for late 1997 in Japan.

"[44][45] The booth also demonstrated the process of rendering audience members' photographed faces onto 3D avatars and shapes—a feature which was ultimately incorporated and released in 2000 as Mario Artist: Talent Studio and the Capture Cassette for 64DD.

[50] Included in the early roster of committed 64DD developers, Rare officially discounted any rumors of the peripheral's impending pre-release cancellation.

[64] Next Generation magazine relayed Chairman Hiroshi Yamauchi's speech that Nintendo 64 adoption in Japan was unexpectedly unfavorable, due to general declination of home console games as often "boring or complicated" and unappealing to ordinary users, and lionizing the mobile Pocket Monsters as the exemplar to learn from.

Nintendo again delayed the 64DD launch; the magazine staff discerned (and witnessed of American visitors) no appeal toward the US market from any current 64DD software (mostly Mario Artist and Pocket Monsters), and said "64DD's future does not look good".

[68] Nintendo 64 Game Paks included Zelda Gaiden (later renamed Majora's Mask), Paper Mario, Mother 3, and Pokémon Gold and Silver.

[71][72][69] Doshin the Giant's developer Kazutoshi Iida recalled a "continuous line of people queued to use the eight playable test units, and the 'Large Screen Experience'" with a very enthusiastic foreign press.

[85] IGN joked that the 64DD was "DeaDD"[86] and Newsweek said, "the gaming press had already witnessed [early pre-launch demonstrations of] the stunning graphics of 128-bit videogame systems like Sega's Dreamcast, Sony's PlayStation 2, and Microsoft's Xbox [so] when you're late to the party, you'd better be dressed to kill.

The hardware was not only completely absent from the event, but previously scheduled products like Ultimate War and Doubutsu Banchou both showed up in playable form – on cartridge for Nintendo 64.

policy seemed to be enforced by Nintendo so brutally that had we even muttered the name of the hardware, we would have probably been tossed out of the show.The show floor had an audience of 2,000, mostly male.

[89] A compilation trailer of Nintendo licenses running on GameCube hardware was displayed, including Derby Stallion,[88][90] Luigi's Mansion, Metroid Prime, and Meowth's Party.

Nintendo conducted the now legendary interactive technology demonstration called Super Mario 128 and played the brief video clip of The Legend of Zelda 128.

[91] Created with a realistic and gritty look to demonstrate the GameCube's power, the clip resonated with fans and commentators who hoped it previewed the next Zelda game.

[92][93] Newsweek said "There were 128 Marios bouncing around on an endlessly shifting landscape; a nightclub filled with rambunctious Pokémon; a Star Wars X-wing fighter leading a blazing assault on the Death Star—all so vividly rendered that they could have been stolen from a Pixar movie.

"[81] The following two days included hands-on demonstrations of games such as Sin and Punishment, Mystery Dungeon, and Animal Forest for Nintendo 64, and Mario Kart Advance for GBA.

[94][55] In early 2000, Miyamoto had declared hope of a debut demonstration of the four year old secret Cabbage prototype at this show, which did not happen and was never mentioned again.

This would be gleaned from trade press coverage at the time, revisited in celebrity developer interviews over the years, and from artifacts discovered in the world's secondary markets over the decades.

The global community of video game historians analyzed the software's cosmetic idiosyncrasies which had resulted from its disposable nature as a late improvised demonstration of the floppy drive prototype just for that one show.

It possessed the world's intrigue and created some of the highest anticipation in gaming history, in part because its exclusivity to this one brief event made it so mysterious.