A “Pokémon” game that has been missing for more than 20 years has recently had a chance to see the light of day again. Recently, an eBay auction sold for as high as US$9,000 (approximately NT$270,000/HK$71,000/RM38,000), attracting great attention from the “Pokémon” preservation community. The reason is that this card box may contain a long-lost official DS event game, and many players hope that someone will buy it and save the contents.
Could there be an official game hidden for 20 years?
GamesRadar reports that this auction is not a general retail version of the game, but a Nintendo DS Download Play delivery cartridge that was used in official events.
It is reported that this event game was only briefly downloaded to player consoles during specific events, and was automatically deleted after about 12 hours. Therefore, it has been regarded as lost media for many years. Now, if the contents of the auctioned card box are complete, there will be an opportunity for this work to see the light of day for the first time.
What players are most worried about is not the price, but whether they can save it!
After the news was exposed, a large number of players and the game preservation community called for buyers to back up their data and save the ROM before collecting it to prevent this piece of game history from disappearing again.
Many players on Reddit also said that what really matters is not who collects it, but whether this official work, which has been missing for 20 years, can be completely preserved. Some even joked that they hoped that a YouTuber or preservation team would buy this card box. This eBay auction is still ongoing, and whether this mysterious “Pokémon” game can really see the light of day has become one of the most concerning topics in the preservation community recently.