Thanks for the video about this. (This is Dane Galden, the inventor of Secret Screen.) I actually have been showing the Secret Screen around privately many years before alot of this public information. I'm sure we'll never really know exactly the timing of who did what when. But you are correct, though, that I wanted to partner with Nintendo themselves or a software company to release with supported functionality.
I imagine you are not the person, given what I am about to say. The Nintendo 64 had only been out for a few months before the information in this video, so there is no chance the person who invented the screen was showing it privately for a few years before. And we do know who did what first, because Sega's earlier releases, and designs for a vmu style system, predate the release of the Nintendo 64. They didn't copy anything.
@@wyterabitt2149 In case you missed the brochures in the video, the original concept I had been working on dates back to 1988 and first appeared in print in 1989. It of course evolved over the years, and I have the mock-up of the NES one somewhere.
@@soonersfan60 You have just caused confusion here. I gave a reply to this comment. Then I saw in my emails there was another comment with more information, it is very annoying when TH-cam only tells you about one reply and it has happened before so I wasn't surprised. I deleted my comment to give a response to the full information, then realised you have deleted the second comment . . . . . I wasted my time responding, only to scrap it so I can give a more relevant response, and now have to remember what I said because you deleted it!! I will respond later again, in case you do add information back.
@@dstinnettmusic Idk, I loved Pokemon Gale of Darkness on Gamecube. that game was fun as hell. I wish Nintendo would make another one like that. Also that game had better graphics than sword & Shield. Lol
We don't actually know how many prototypes were made? So this unit could conceivably be the EXACT same one as pictured in EGM? Either way, it's a very neat item.
This is Dane Galden, the inventor. That is the only prototype I made... that is the one from the magazine. I had the concept quite a while before I made it into the prototype, and actually showed it around privately to a few companies prior to that. I have recently seen some of the early Sega paperwork, and I am sure that mine does pre-date all of that. I even have more paperwork from responses when showing it around. Shane has some of that from me. (And work on my patent that did not get granted is from quite awhile back also.)
@@soonersfan60 Hello man, that device was really interesting. I know I would have bought it back then. Just curious, why didn't you keep it? How did it end up in someone else's hands?
I really liked the VMU. I remember putting it on my keychain and play Sonic Chao game at work. The battery was really a weakness on the VMU though. When you gamed with it without the controller the non rechargeable watch battery only lasted a day or two.
@@thebasketballhistorian3291 Same here. I loved the Dreamcast and while the VMU seemed like a neat idea I never paid much attention to what it had on it during gameplay and only tried playing a mini game on it once. All it really did was make memory cards more expensive!
Hard 4 Games is my grown up Saturday Morning Cartoon. I tought I was the biggest N64 fan. But Tony proved me wrong. He have seen some real messed up shit!
My entire singular remaining dopamine molecule bouncing around in my brain began to tingle in a happy fuzzy feeling upon seeing the H4G notification and again after seeing your Swan Crystal shirt. 💗
Perhaps, given the quality was better this prototype to provide an actually readable map, but even then if would've caused conflicts with the Rumble Pak used for finding secrets in the overworld.
Interesting screen, Sega had already a screen for the saturn back in 1995, the hi navi lcd , only on the hitashi navi saturn however. Very rare nowadays those screen ( less than 1000 pieces). Great video by the way
This is actually really clever and I'm surprised Nintendo didn't think of it themselves. It's literally just a Game Boy connected to the memory card port. Would have been a way to use up existing stock of Game Boy parts, and the Game Boy was about 10 years old by then, so it would have probably been cheap to make. The N64 was perfect for it, having the port on the controller, and focusing on multiplayer games (I think it was the first console with 4 controller ports? Not counting multitaps) it would have been a big selling point, while not being actually required for the games (so no worries if you couldn't afford it). The design would be pretty simple electronically too. It could work just like a memory card, but with plain RAM instead of flash; once a program is uploaded to it, the Game Boy runs it like an ordinary cartridge, and communicates through the same bus via what was originally the link cable. It would have been a perfect fit for Nintendo's love of repurposing their old hardware. Perhaps if he'd posed the idea to them earlier - and maybe hired someone to make a simple prototype "game" to go with it - it would have taken off. Nintendo certainly did like the idea of a screen in a controller... As for stealing his idea, it seems more like just bad luck that everyone had the same idea around the same time. Again, if he'd done it a little sooner...
It's not the first system with 4 controller ports. I don't explicitly know what would be. But I know it's not the nintendo 64. That's because I have an Atari 800XL under my desk; That's a microcomputer, but it's chipset was designed to make a game console with (eventually that became the 5200, but that was long after the microcomputer) Now, the 800XL only has two controller ports; some of the circuitry got repurposed. But if you try and program it you'll note there's a controller port A, and a Port B in the documentation, each supporting two controllers. Why? Because the 800XL is, by 1982, actually the 5th iteration of the system. The 600XL being a lower cost variant, the 1200XL being a slightly earlier redesign which was simplified into the 800XL... All the XL models (and the later XE's) have two controller ports... But... The original 400 and and 800 from 1979? They have 4 controller ports. So yeah. Don't know for sure if they were the first either, but Atari beat Nintendo to 4 built in controller ports by a full 17 years.
The great thing about your channel, Tony, is that even if those devices break or are lost for some reason, at least they will be documented for futurity. Keep up the great work! :)
I know I would have died to have this gimmick for my Nintendo64 back in the day. But the concept wasn't all new either, I remember going with mom to the stores one day and seeing an translucent SNES controller with autofire switches and a small display on the upper half of the middle part where usually the console's logo is on the gamepad.
Honestly, this feels like this would have led to a chicken-and-egg situation. Developers didn't want to make software because there was no install base for the device, but the device couldn't be made without developers making the software for it
It only could've been done with/by Nintendo because of the hardware/software issue. The Game Boy was just used as his proof-of-concept, a cheaper screen than any mini tv available at the time. ($50 vs. abt. $100)
That's gaming peripherals in a nutshell. It's why the Wii HAD to have a motion controller as standard despite people's complaints. If it had been an optional peripheral, it would've flopped and nobody would've supported it. ... Just like what happened with the majority of optional peripherals made for most systems... Especially ones that require special code support in games themselves to do anything.
You should consider sending this to the National Video Game Museum in Frisco, Texas. They have a lot of prototypes and unreleased hardware, so this would probably fit right in.
Wow! This is amazing, it's almost exactly the sega VMU, but a year or two earlier. Nintendo should have jumped on this! I could even envision using a gameboy pocket or gameboy color in a mount, so save on some manufacturing costs.
Well this was quite awesome and informative, had no knowledge about this. Thanks for some video game history! (Also good to see the hair growing back from the buzz cut lol)
I was finally able to make it down state and stopped by Retro-Taku like 2 weeks ago, I got to meet John for the first time and had a cool conversation with him. Also, I found a few things I was looking for at the store and scooped them up, great store! I'll be going back soon enough.
I think it's unlikely that Sega actually ever saw that article published beneath theirs until long after the fact. Considering that Sega was *already* developing and prototyping concepts for their own controller screens which utilized a memory card port, Sega of Japan would've flipped their lids about this article. Like, you know how rough and unreliable translations can be. If anybody from Sega of America tried reading them the lines "Nintendo had the built in port in their controller. They have the 8 bit bus on the bottom of their controller for their memory cards." Sega would've completely lost their minds. They would've went bonkers and started running around with their hair on fire, thinking that Nintendo had somehow managed to completely one-up them with a fully functional Nintendo version of their controller screens, not realizing it was nothing more than an unlicensed hacked together mishmash of a game boy PCB crudely soldered onto a controller.
Well one of the features for sports games back then was you could see what formation they picked but there were 3 plays per screen so you could tell the personal but not the play. Which makes it more like real life (you can see the other team make substitutions and call a defense accordingly)
I've seen information about a similar controller released in the early 1980s for the Atari 2600. The Le Stick also used mercury for its motion controls. Its release was limited both by the game crash and the lack of games designed specifically for the device. The latter affected the U-Force, Power Glove, and, likely, the Game Handler.
I had a mercury switch joystick for my zx spectrum in the mid 80`s. It wasn't very good with a dreadful dead zone and it hurt your wrist after a while.I dont think it was a le stick but it was very similar. I have probably still got it somewhere, wonder if the mercury has leaked out lol.
So now I see where Sega got the idea for a screen on the Dreamcast VMU that slotted into the controllers. They were perfect for secret sports plays, and many people noted that feature back in the day.
@@Omnishredder Pocketstation plugged into the console, not the controller and came out in 99, the Dreamcast VMU was already out before that in 98 in Japan and shown off as early as 1997 in gaming magazines.
I was going to mention the Saturn 3D controller. Jenovi did a great video on all the different add-on peripherals that Sega had been developing for the 3D controller. I will leave a link to it at the bottom of my comment. I think he mentioned a screen, but I can't recall. Regardless, it's quite unlikely that Sega hadn't thought of the concept themselves, probably even years before Dane showed his prototype, as Sega had a history of being really innovative and inventive in their prototypes. The fact that they would even try to develop any add-ons for the 3D controller, a controller which probably most Sega Saturn owners didn't even own, I think says a lot, both to Sega's ingenuity and eagerness to innovate, and their wildly optimistic ambition which likely helped to doom them as a console manufacturer. I have absolutely zero doubt in my mind that Sega wasn't at least trying to develop the concept before that magazine ever saw publication. Jenovi's video: th-cam.com/video/TktHZoVWRCw/w-d-xo.html
By the way, 10.9k subscribers is absolutely stupid. He's massively under-subbed. Lots more people would be interested in his content, I think. Then again, 74.2k for Hard4Games is massively stupid as well. You guys should have (at least) many hundreds of thousands of subs.
In hindsight maybe it wasn't the best idea since the Wii U was the final evolution of this, as was the Sony 3D display that most people haven't even heard of.
I remember playing on this controller with that same exact screen on it. And it wasnt the dream cast because i distinctly remember the three prongs of the controller. This is soo weird
I loved the Dreamcast VMU. Especially in games like Resident Evil, where it would show your health and ammo (where otherwise you had to look in the menu for that style of game).
I had that motion controller for the NES, it was also compatible with the ATARI and Genesis as it had a dual plug with one end for the NES and the other end using the ATARI and Genesis 9pin connector
i think i know how the cockpit viewer works. it works by rotating a bar of light maybe and pulsating through the frame but back then i dont think we had any tech that could do that.
I literally used N64fan as my username on several sites forever ago and the N64 has been my favorite console since like fifth grade. I already knew about this addon, but I never saw a video explaining how it worked.
This would've been awesome for Pokemon Stadium 1 & 2 (although would've caused headaches in conjunction with Transfer Pak usage). There was at least a similar usage in Pokemon Colosseum/XD:GoD where you could connect your GBA and choose your options through that, but unfortunately if you wanted to use your console Mons you were stuck with your options and party Mons on screen that your opponent could peek at.
That thing would have been so cool back in the day. Can you imagine playing an RPG and having all your stats right there at your controller. Or imagine having a private screen to pick a fastball or curveball so your friend doesn't see what you're throwing.
Not going to lie, playing something like Final fantasy with your menu on a separate screen would have been pretty cool, managing your inventory without even having to pause the game would have made it pretty smooth.
So basically an enhanced Dreamcast VMU before the Dreamcast VMU was even a thing. Too bad it didn't take off because some of that VMU stuff was pretty handy. Would have been neat to see games be able to send data to the controller screens to show player-specific info like the VMU does.
Yeah that was just, one of those ideas everyone had. Once people saw game boys linked up, it made sense to link them to other things, like consoles. Either via special cables or building a basic one into a dedicated device. ... Semirelated, I always thought it was kinda odd there was never a big mmbn game for the gamecube that you could literally jack into from one of the GBA ones.
When talking about it breaking during shipping, you could have showed a short clip of Ace Ventura when he was kicking the package down the street. Not every shipping employee has restraint on bad days.
I found it to be funny and rather cute that the Super Mario 64 Disk game was purchased in France, France lmfao, one of the commercials was using a French persons voice, and when Super Mario 64 was made, Easter eggs like when he sleeps for a while had a cool thing that reflects some signs of Dean Martin, when he sang a bit of Dean Martins song that’s a moray in Mario Teaches Typing 2, that was not only funny and awesome to see Mario do, but when the 64DD unreleased only version of a Mario 64 was a lost relic someday found by someone, I thought it was hilarious and awesome that they found it in France! To think the disks travels would eventually stop in France before years later it’s ever purchased by someone is funny because one of the beta commercials had someone French talk about the game lolol, was the game a gift to France? :D
this secret screen looks usefull. i mean, on pokémon stadium 1 and 2, your opponent had to make an move without knowing what attack the other had choice. that createad a lot of possible strategies that you could make and they couldnt predict, or could predict and had to take into account that possibility before they chose their moves. you may think that this tool was not going to help, because the solution that pokémon stadium had (you can chose an attack without revealing wich one, by pressing/not pressing) R was good enough, but this system only works on that particular game because you could chose any attack or pokémon with 6 buttons. for other games, an system like this couldnt be implemented
You can already do this with pretty much any screen with an hdmi port, the problem is trying a game that's coded to run a second screen. The only game that I know of that even comes close to this on PC is Fallout 4, by using your phone to manage your inventory. That being said, the PS4 does have something similar by using the Vita or your phone as a second screen for select games.
Sega of America were backing a totally different prototype at the time and were more likely to see the article than Sega of Japan who were working on Dural/Katana and very much not all that concerned with what was going on in the west. That and I can see various issues with the idea, VMU just about worked as the LCD screen made it cost-viable and was somewhat essential to the system. The third party nature of Secret Screen means devs would have to commit to a feature they know many won't have access to. Plus 1997 being the end of the generation doesn't help, by 1997 lots of devs were on their final projects for N64/Playstation and were already done with Saturn. Pocketstation I think came out around 1998 and Sony didn't have enough faith to sell that outside Japan.
The most likely reason why so many companies had the same idea at the same time period, is that in fact many companies had that in mind wayyyyyyy back in the past, but only around ~97 did the technology become cheap enough to actually be sensible. And even then... the VMU and the PocketStation had much worse screens than the Game Boy, making them very limited in what they could display.
Gameboy screen was likely the most expensive part at this time. And it needed custom changes to the production cycle. Better is not always practical, or cheap enough relatively speaking. I doubt they could have put this out, made a total profit from the N64 market, and paid the licencing fees, without it costing $60 - and likely more. And for that you get a screen that does nothing in any previously released game, nothing in any game a developer can't think of a use for, and has no value on its own. Adding a save feature will increase the cost more. Compare that to the vmu that did a decent job at the specific sports use envisioned for the secret screen, had a save feature, mini game features separately, and a screen good enough that keeps the price substantially lower. The vmu was a partial success, partial failure. The secret screen would have been a disaster.
"bad timing": how and why? the time was precisely right - the prove is that there was a non-successful product on the market before his and there where more successful implementations later. Both dreamcast and wii u prove that even building the feature into the spec of the system does not make the idea more then a gimmick, that is only put to got use by very few games, get a token gimmick by some games, but is basically ignored by most games, even when it would have made sense in game to use (I am looking at you breath of the wild)
The NES motion Controller wasn't as advanced as you believe. I own an Atari controller with exact same mercury switch motion controls. It's called le'Stick. If anything it looks like this guy straight up stole that idea.
Never personally used it. I did read some reviews saying it worked "well for the time/well considering". Obviously not a super precise controller. I guess i wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. 😀
@@hard4games I keep that Le' Stick as a novelty item. It's a cool conversation piece as you think Wii invented motion controls?? Atari 2600 did it first! As for actual gameplay it's almost worthless. Yes, technically it works but it's so inconsistent you can't really do serious gaming with it. It was basically a bicycle grip with a big red fire button on top of it.
Before watching this video, I had a crazy idea based on the thumbnail but I didn't want to say what the idea was until after I watched the video in case it was mentioned. And nope, it wasn't mentioned in the video! Basically, I have realised that the Virtual Boy had an unreleased Link Cable to connect to other Virtual Boys. If you look at the port 'Controller', it's exactly the same kind of port you'd see on Nintendo's home consoles for TV output. The N64 port is labelled 'Multi-out' which makes me wonder if there's a prototype cable + game out there that uses the N64 as a processor, and the Virtual Boy as the TV/controller Input? Is there any way to test this? Can you imagine a world where you could control Super Mario 64 in 3D (albeit red & black)?
Nintendo has reused that port design in other things in the past as well. The ram adapter port on the Famicom Disk System is the exact same port minus a few pins and the notch (to the extent that you can actually cut an AV cable or remove and modify an AV port to fit the Disk System) Multi-out likely refers to the fact that the port is used interchangably for AV, RF adapters, and SCART cables.
Great video, I’m with you in that I don’t buy the idea that Sega or Nintendo copied it. They clearly didn’t copy the technology behind it, and I don’t think the basic idea of “a screen on a game controller” is so unique that it could be copyrighted. I’ll bet you anything that kids in the 80s playing multiplayer NES games would have had the same idea independently.
I mean.. i understand the idea, but dont you select a formation and then see a big screen with many plays and select your final option by pressing one controller Button?? The N64 has 12 possible final selection options (up, down, left, right, R, L, Z and the 4 yellow buttons). That thing might be cool but totally not needed if you ask me... The pokemon game for example let you open the selection and you selected one of the options by pressing A, B or one of the yellow buttions... and i think there was one for "back" as well. My friend always changed his pokemon to counter me and then i picked the counter to his before his was even on the field. It then evolved into not picking the counter to what is on the field right now on but picking the counter to what would be the counter, so i case the counter counter would be countered..... so a extra screen isnt needed at all (dreamcast and WiiU prove this)
Funny you mention Pokemon Stadium. Me and my sister had a rule because we used rentet Pokemon for battle whoever is pickinh 2nd need to be outside the room while the first person is selecting what pokemon to use. We made it that way so the 2nd person would not pick the team that conters the first one
I'm eating some fried mince chicken right now and although the expiring date is tomorrow, I think it's spoiled. It tastes funny... but I'm still eating. Not in the mood to cook again.
Very interesting, I have never seen anything about this device before. If it had gotten released I don't think it would have been much of a success. For sport games it would have been alright I suppose but I don't see much other use for it. I was one of the biggest Dreamcast fans around in the early 2000s and even I didn't really care about the VMU. It was neat sure but I never really used any of the VMU features. I liked Sonic Adventure 2 but really could not have cared less about the Chao Garden. I loved Skies of Arcadia and would have tried Pinta's Quest on the VMU to get special items but by that time my VMU battery was dead and I didn't care enough to even replace it.
So it's basically a GameBoy with pre-soldered cartridge that piggybacks off a N64 controller for power and controls. That's cool, I guess? Now it can be easily backlit too :P
"Oh yeah I'm an N64 expert, I've seen it all....nothing new could come up after all this ti....what the f*ck is that!?!?"
stfu
@@L3yon
Nintendo Dreamcast
Thanks for the video about this. (This is Dane Galden, the inventor of Secret Screen.) I actually have been showing the Secret Screen around privately many years before alot of this public information. I'm sure we'll never really know exactly the timing of who did what when. But you are correct, though, that I wanted to partner with Nintendo themselves or a software company to release with supported functionality.
If you're the genuine article, that's pretty cool.
I imagine you are not the person, given what I am about to say. The Nintendo 64 had only been out for a few months before the information in this video, so there is no chance the person who invented the screen was showing it privately for a few years before.
And we do know who did what first, because Sega's earlier releases, and designs for a vmu style system, predate the release of the Nintendo 64. They didn't copy anything.
@@wyterabitt2149 In case you missed the brochures in the video, the original concept I had been working on dates back to 1988 and first appeared in print in 1989. It of course evolved over the years, and I have the mock-up of the NES one somewhere.
@@soonersfan60 You have just caused confusion here. I gave a reply to this comment. Then I saw in my emails there was another comment with more information, it is very annoying when TH-cam only tells you about one reply and it has happened before so I wasn't surprised. I deleted my comment to give a response to the full information, then realised you have deleted the second comment . . . . .
I wasted my time responding, only to scrap it so I can give a more relevant response, and now have to remember what I said because you deleted it!! I will respond later again, in case you do add information back.
Would have been good for Pokémon Stadium.
Ah, playing a gameboy game as it was meant to be played...through an N64 for some reason
69th like
Would remind me of how the Gamecube pokemon games handled things putting it on your GBA
oh hell yeah.
@@dstinnettmusic Idk, I loved Pokemon Gale of Darkness on Gamecube. that game was fun as hell. I wish Nintendo would make another one like that. Also that game had better graphics than sword & Shield. Lol
We don't actually know how many prototypes were made? So this unit could conceivably be the EXACT same one as pictured in EGM? Either way, it's a very neat item.
Boxer
It's probably the exact one.
This is Dane Galden, the inventor. That is the only prototype I made... that is the one from the magazine. I had the concept quite a while before I made it into the prototype, and actually showed it around privately to a few companies prior to that. I have recently seen some of the early Sega paperwork, and I am sure that mine does pre-date all of that. I even have more paperwork from responses when showing it around. Shane has some of that from me. (And work on my patent that did not get granted is from quite awhile back also.)
@@soonersfan60 wow a real celebrity
@@soonersfan60 Hello man, that device was really interesting. I know I would have bought it back then. Just curious, why didn't you keep it? How did it end up in someone else's hands?
The 6 people who disliked this video are flaccid for games
*those darn karens*
This channel has been running for years and FINALLY someone makes this joke! Haha
Tuenti juan
lmao
real softies dawg .
The vmu was great. I would have loved to see this get released.
I really liked the VMU. I remember putting it on my keychain and play Sonic Chao game at work. The battery was really a weakness on the VMU though. When you gamed with it without the controller the non rechargeable watch battery only lasted a day or two.
I barely looked at the VMU display in my time owning a Dreamcast, lol.
@@thebasketballhistorian3291 Same here. I loved the Dreamcast and while the VMU seemed like a neat idea I never paid much attention to what it had on it during gameplay and only tried playing a mini game on it once. All it really did was make memory cards more expensive!
@@HerecomestheCalavera Not really there were standard memory cards
No it wasn't, it was a d*mb idea. Happy Nintendo didn't do it.
Hard 4 Games is my grown up Saturday Morning Cartoon. I tought I was the biggest N64 fan. But Tony proved me wrong. He have seen some real messed up shit!
I remember that episode of EGM and wanted that second screen. Thanks for the walk down memory lane.
You have to dump that Game Boy ROM!
My entire singular remaining dopamine molecule bouncing around in my brain began to tingle in a happy fuzzy feeling upon seeing the H4G notification and again after seeing your Swan Crystal shirt. 💗
Be good for Legend of Zelda when you get the map and compass.
Perhaps, given the quality was better this prototype to provide an actually readable map, but even then if would've caused conflicts with the Rumble Pak used for finding secrets in the overworld.
Nintendo stole the Wii U from this man.
*
I'm kidding.
*
They stole the DS from him.
dual screen game and watch though
Poor Game & Watch.
@@hard4games I can't believe nintendo stole the game and watch from him smh
Poor VMU
It went on to be implemented on the dreamcast 😂
Interesting screen, Sega had already a screen for the saturn back in 1995, the hi navi lcd , only on the hitashi navi saturn however. Very rare nowadays those screen ( less than 1000 pieces). Great video by the way
This is actually really clever and I'm surprised Nintendo didn't think of it themselves. It's literally just a Game Boy connected to the memory card port. Would have been a way to use up existing stock of Game Boy parts, and the Game Boy was about 10 years old by then, so it would have probably been cheap to make. The N64 was perfect for it, having the port on the controller, and focusing on multiplayer games (I think it was the first console with 4 controller ports? Not counting multitaps) it would have been a big selling point, while not being actually required for the games (so no worries if you couldn't afford it).
The design would be pretty simple electronically too. It could work just like a memory card, but with plain RAM instead of flash; once a program is uploaded to it, the Game Boy runs it like an ordinary cartridge, and communicates through the same bus via what was originally the link cable. It would have been a perfect fit for Nintendo's love of repurposing their old hardware.
Perhaps if he'd posed the idea to them earlier - and maybe hired someone to make a simple prototype "game" to go with it - it would have taken off. Nintendo certainly did like the idea of a screen in a controller...
As for stealing his idea, it seems more like just bad luck that everyone had the same idea around the same time. Again, if he'd done it a little sooner...
It's not the first system with 4 controller ports. I don't explicitly know what would be.
But I know it's not the nintendo 64.
That's because I have an Atari 800XL under my desk;
That's a microcomputer, but it's chipset was designed to make a game console with (eventually that became the 5200, but that was long after the microcomputer)
Now, the 800XL only has two controller ports; some of the circuitry got repurposed.
But if you try and program it you'll note there's a controller port A, and a Port B in the documentation, each supporting two controllers.
Why? Because the 800XL is, by 1982, actually the 5th iteration of the system.
The 600XL being a lower cost variant, the 1200XL being a slightly earlier redesign which was simplified into the 800XL...
All the XL models (and the later XE's) have two controller ports...
But... The original 400 and and 800 from 1979? They have 4 controller ports.
So yeah.
Don't know for sure if they were the first either, but Atari beat Nintendo to 4 built in controller ports by a full 17 years.
What a nice piece of history, it makes me always feel a bit sad, when cool ideas get rejected.
Keep up the good work, love your content.
I'm hard for two things in life. one of them's mozzarella sticks, and the other is games.
McDonald's ones?
Wait...McDonalds has mozzarella sticks?
@@Tieigo0 burger king
The great thing about your channel, Tony, is that even if those devices break or are lost for some reason, at least they will be documented for futurity. Keep up the great work! :)
I know I would have died to have this gimmick for my Nintendo64 back in the day.
But the concept wasn't all new either, I remember going with mom to the stores one day and seeing an translucent SNES controller with autofire switches and a small display on the upper half of the middle part where usually the console's logo is on the gamepad.
I doubt that screen connected to the console though. Probably just showed autofire settings or a clock.
Honestly, this feels like this would have led to a chicken-and-egg situation. Developers didn't want to make software because there was no install base for the device, but the device couldn't be made without developers making the software for it
It probably would be bundled with whatever third party developer committed.
I mean, the egg came before to the chicken. Dinosaurs used to lay eggs. But yeah, you are right. It is some kind of paradox.
It only could've been done with/by Nintendo because of the hardware/software issue. The Game Boy was just used as his proof-of-concept, a cheaper screen than any mini tv available at the time. ($50 vs. abt. $100)
That's gaming peripherals in a nutshell.
It's why the Wii HAD to have a motion controller as standard despite people's complaints.
If it had been an optional peripheral, it would've flopped and nobody would've supported it.
... Just like what happened with the majority of optional peripherals made for most systems...
Especially ones that require special code support in games themselves to do anything.
Dreamcast does what Ninten-almost-did
Awesome. I loved using the VMU to choose plays on NFL2k for the Dreamcast.
i remember seeing this in a magazine my friend had when i was a kid. completely forgot about it till now. all of a sudden my life makes sense
You should consider sending this to the National Video Game Museum in Frisco, Texas. They have a lot of prototypes and unreleased hardware, so this would probably fit right in.
Wow! This is amazing, it's almost exactly the sega VMU, but a year or two earlier.
Nintendo should have jumped on this! I could even envision using a gameboy pocket or gameboy color in a mount, so save on some manufacturing costs.
It's just never ending neat finds on this channel!
Just don't steal my invention: the secret controller.
Well this was quite awesome and informative, had no knowledge about this. Thanks for some video game history! (Also good to see the hair growing back from the buzz cut lol)
makes me think back to playing sonic shuffle on the dreamcast
Well its no longer a secret screen thanks to you.
I was finally able to make it down state and stopped by Retro-Taku like 2 weeks ago, I got to meet John for the first time and had a cool conversation with him. Also, I found a few things I was looking for at the store and scooped them up, great store! I'll be going back soon enough.
There’s probably some lost prototype of me that disappeared. (Wouldn’t be surprised if you had it.)
Do you want it back?
Hard4Games Nah, it’ll mess up in shipping.
Damn, massive shout out to Shane for being such a cool dude! And having so much cool stuff while also sharing it with everyone else!
I think it's unlikely that Sega actually ever saw that article published beneath theirs until long after the fact. Considering that Sega was *already* developing and prototyping concepts for their own controller screens which utilized a memory card port, Sega of Japan would've flipped their lids about this article. Like, you know how rough and unreliable translations can be. If anybody from Sega of America tried reading them the lines "Nintendo had the built in port in their controller. They have the 8 bit bus on the bottom of their controller for their memory cards." Sega would've completely lost their minds. They would've went bonkers and started running around with their hair on fire, thinking that Nintendo had somehow managed to completely one-up them with a fully functional Nintendo version of their controller screens, not realizing it was nothing more than an unlicensed hacked together mishmash of a game boy PCB crudely soldered onto a controller.
Well one of the features for sports games back then was you could see what formation they picked but there were 3 plays per screen so you could tell the personal but not the play. Which makes it more like real life (you can see the other team make substitutions and call a defense accordingly)
Watching this at 3:47am becuz corona thanks for this free entertainment
Rock on! Hope you stay safe!
Hard4games will nut4games after seeing the gigaleak
I've seen information about a similar controller released in the early 1980s for the Atari 2600. The Le Stick also used mercury for its motion controls. Its release was limited both by the game crash and the lack of games designed specifically for the device. The latter affected the U-Force, Power Glove, and, likely, the Game Handler.
I had a mercury switch joystick for my zx spectrum in the mid 80`s. It wasn't very good with a dreadful dead zone and it hurt your wrist after a while.I dont think it was a le stick but it was very similar.
I have probably still got it somewhere, wonder if the mercury has leaked out lol.
Beautiful. I'll take any bit more of history on these old consoles. Thought you'd seen it all for the N64 than this thing shows up in 2020. Nice
So now I see where Sega got the idea for a screen on the Dreamcast VMU that slotted into the controllers. They were perfect for secret sports plays, and many people noted that feature back in the day.
You commented before watching didn't you!
Almost looks like a precursor to the VMU on the Dreamcast. Definitely suspect lol.
It’s almost as sketchy as Nintendo stealing the “first big 3D game” spot from Argonaut.
Don't forget the pocket station as well
@@Omnishredder Pocketstation plugged into the console, not the controller and came out in 99, the Dreamcast VMU was already out before that in 98 in Japan and shown off as early as 1997 in gaming magazines.
The VMU was basically Sega’s answer to the Tomagachi craze. Only so much more versatile.
Ristar...great song choice for the reading intro 🙌🏻
I was going to mention the Saturn 3D controller. Jenovi did a great video on all the different add-on peripherals that Sega had been developing for the 3D controller. I will leave a link to it at the bottom of my comment. I think he mentioned a screen, but I can't recall. Regardless, it's quite unlikely that Sega hadn't thought of the concept themselves, probably even years before Dane showed his prototype, as Sega had a history of being really innovative and inventive in their prototypes. The fact that they would even try to develop any add-ons for the 3D controller, a controller which probably most Sega Saturn owners didn't even own, I think says a lot, both to Sega's ingenuity and eagerness to innovate, and their wildly optimistic ambition which likely helped to doom them as a console manufacturer. I have absolutely zero doubt in my mind that Sega wasn't at least trying to develop the concept before that magazine ever saw publication.
Jenovi's video: th-cam.com/video/TktHZoVWRCw/w-d-xo.html
By the way, 10.9k subscribers is absolutely stupid. He's massively under-subbed. Lots more people would be interested in his content, I think.
Then again, 74.2k for Hard4Games is massively stupid as well. You guys should have (at least) many hundreds of thousands of subs.
Thanks, Shane.
And also Tony!
In hindsight maybe it wasn't the best idea since the Wii U was the final evolution of this, as was the Sony 3D display that most people haven't even heard of.
You need to get this device to someone like Ben Heck. Reinforce the case or make a new case.
I remember playing on this controller with that same exact screen on it. And it wasnt the dream cast because i distinctly remember the three prongs of the controller. This is soo weird
I loved the Dreamcast VMU. Especially in games like Resident Evil, where it would show your health and ammo (where otherwise you had to look in the menu for that style of game).
Bro I haven't been this early since I beat the other sperm to the egg
STFU
I had that motion controller for the NES, it was also compatible with the ATARI and Genesis as it had a dual plug with one end for the NES and the other end using the ATARI and Genesis 9pin connector
This thing looks freaking rad!
i think i know how the cockpit viewer works. it works by rotating a bar of light maybe and pulsating through the frame but back then i dont think we had any tech that could do that.
I literally used N64fan as my username on several sites forever ago and the N64 has been my favorite console since like fifth grade. I already knew about this addon, but I never saw a video explaining how it worked.
Damn now I want the VMU Saturn controller.
You guys are knocking it out of the park 💯
This would've been awesome for Pokemon Stadium 1 & 2 (although would've caused headaches in conjunction with Transfer Pak usage). There was at least a similar usage in Pokemon Colosseum/XD:GoD where you could connect your GBA and choose your options through that, but unfortunately if you wanted to use your console Mons you were stuck with your options and party Mons on screen that your opponent could peek at.
That thing would have been so cool back in the day. Can you imagine playing an RPG and having all your stats right there at your controller. Or imagine having a private screen to pick a fastball or curveball so your friend doesn't see what you're throwing.
Not going to lie, playing something like Final fantasy with your menu on a separate screen would have been pretty cool, managing your inventory without even having to pause the game would have made it pretty smooth.
Man there was so much out now. This is so cool.
So basically an enhanced Dreamcast VMU before the Dreamcast VMU was even a thing. Too bad it didn't take off because some of that VMU stuff was pretty handy. Would have been neat to see games be able to send data to the controller screens to show player-specific info like the VMU does.
Does the Secret Screen fit on the Ultra 64 controller? (If you even want to attempt this with the fragile plastic that is)
Yeah that was just, one of those ideas everyone had. Once people saw game boys linked up, it made sense to link them to other things, like consoles. Either via special cables or building a basic one into a dedicated device.
... Semirelated, I always thought it was kinda odd there was never a big mmbn game for the gamecube that you could literally jack into from one of the GBA ones.
Quite incredible! Love your content
When talking about it breaking during shipping, you could have showed a short clip of Ace Ventura when he was kicking the package down the street. Not every shipping employee has restraint on bad days.
I found it to be funny and rather cute that the Super Mario 64 Disk game was purchased in France, France lmfao, one of the commercials was using a French persons voice, and when Super Mario 64 was made, Easter eggs like when he sleeps for a while had a cool thing that reflects some signs of Dean Martin, when he sang a bit of Dean Martins song that’s a moray in Mario Teaches Typing 2, that was not only funny and awesome to see Mario do, but when the 64DD unreleased only version of a Mario 64 was a lost relic someday found by someone, I thought it was hilarious and awesome that they found it in France! To think the disks travels would eventually stop in France before years later it’s ever purchased by someone is funny because one of the beta commercials had someone French talk about the game lolol, was the game a gift to France? :D
Where did you get that ULTRA 64 jewel for the front of your N64? That thing looks spiffy, and I want one.
Rocker Gaming Mods. On etsy
this secret screen looks usefull.
i mean, on pokémon stadium 1 and 2, your opponent had to make an move without knowing what attack the other had choice.
that createad a lot of possible strategies that you could make and they couldnt predict, or could predict and had to take into account that possibility before they chose their moves.
you may think that this tool was not going to help, because the solution that pokémon stadium had (you can chose an attack without revealing wich one, by pressing/not pressing) R was good enough, but this system only works on that particular game because you could chose any attack or pokémon with 6 buttons.
for other games, an system like this couldnt be implemented
where you have this ultra64 sticker from? normalyl says nintendo64
Makes me wanna make a peripheral for a PC game that adds in a secondary screen for secondary functions
You can already do this with pretty much any screen with an hdmi port, the problem is trying a game that's coded to run a second screen. The only game that I know of that even comes close to this on PC is Fallout 4, by using your phone to manage your inventory. That being said, the PS4 does have something similar by using the Vita or your phone as a second screen for select games.
This is quite common in simracing, such as use as a dash.
Sega of America were backing a totally different prototype at the time and were more likely to see the article than Sega of Japan who were working on Dural/Katana and very much not all that concerned with what was going on in the west.
That and I can see various issues with the idea, VMU just about worked as the LCD screen made it cost-viable and was somewhat essential to the system. The third party nature of Secret Screen means devs would have to commit to a feature they know many won't have access to. Plus 1997 being the end of the generation doesn't help, by 1997 lots of devs were on their final projects for N64/Playstation and were already done with Saturn. Pocketstation I think came out around 1998 and Sony didn't have enough faith to sell that outside Japan.
The most likely reason why so many companies had the same idea at the same time period, is that in fact many companies had that in mind wayyyyyyy back in the past, but only around ~97 did the technology become cheap enough to actually be sensible. And even then... the VMU and the PocketStation had much worse screens than the Game Boy, making them very limited in what they could display.
Gameboy screen was likely the most expensive part at this time. And it needed custom changes to the production cycle.
Better is not always practical, or cheap enough relatively speaking. I doubt they could have put this out, made a total profit from the N64 market, and paid the licencing fees, without it costing $60 - and likely more. And for that you get a screen that does nothing in any previously released game, nothing in any game a developer can't think of a use for, and has no value on its own. Adding a save feature will increase the cost more.
Compare that to the vmu that did a decent job at the specific sports use envisioned for the secret screen, had a save feature, mini game features separately, and a screen good enough that keeps the price substantially lower. The vmu was a partial success, partial failure. The secret screen would have been a disaster.
This is the video I needed for years
Wow the motion handler was much more accurate than the wii remote motion
Just scan and 3D print a new casing for it with reinforced clip structure where it broke .
Elliot: I turned an N64 controller into a Game Boy for no reason.
Ah yes hooking up your secret screen to your Ultra 64 as one does
"bad timing": how and why? the time was precisely right - the prove is that there was a non-successful product on the market before his and there where more successful implementations later. Both dreamcast and wii u prove that even building the feature into the spec of the system does not make the idea more then a gimmick, that is only put to got use by very few games, get a token gimmick by some games, but is basically ignored by most games, even when it would have made sense in game to use (I am looking at you breath of the wild)
Cool story, now I need these homebrew developers to make it work with a game via flashcard and rom patching.
The NES motion Controller wasn't as advanced as you believe. I own an Atari controller with exact same mercury switch motion controls. It's called le'Stick. If anything it looks like this guy straight up stole that idea.
Never personally used it. I did read some reviews saying it worked "well for the time/well considering". Obviously not a super precise controller. I guess i wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. 😀
@@hard4games I keep that Le' Stick as a novelty item. It's a cool conversation piece as you think Wii invented motion controls?? Atari 2600 did it first! As for actual gameplay it's almost worthless. Yes, technically it works but it's so inconsistent you can't really do serious gaming with it. It was basically a bicycle grip with a big red fire button on top of it.
Remember Mad Catz rumble pack that allowed you to plug a memory card into it... then plug that into this screen... ultimate N64 controller!!
Before watching this video, I had a crazy idea based on the thumbnail but I didn't want to say what the idea was until after I watched the video in case it was mentioned.
And nope, it wasn't mentioned in the video! Basically, I have realised that the Virtual Boy had an unreleased Link Cable to connect to other Virtual Boys. If you look at the port 'Controller', it's exactly the same kind of port you'd see on Nintendo's home consoles for TV output. The N64 port is labelled 'Multi-out' which makes me wonder if there's a prototype cable + game out there that uses the N64 as a processor, and the Virtual Boy as the TV/controller Input? Is there any way to test this?
Can you imagine a world where you could control Super Mario 64 in 3D (albeit red & black)?
Nintendo has reused that port design in other things in the past as well. The ram adapter port on the Famicom Disk System is the exact same port minus a few pins and the notch (to the extent that you can actually cut an AV cable or remove and modify an AV port to fit the Disk System)
Multi-out likely refers to the fact that the port is used interchangably for AV, RF adapters, and SCART cables.
Excelent, video! awesome content, as aways! Greatings from Brazil!
Just when I thought I was out they drag me back in.
How about releasing based on game genre? The full kit for the software? 👍
Cool video. Really neat to see that device.
I had the Game Handler. Might still have it. It was interesting but pretty weird for the time.
This would have been very popular. I cant help but feel like this was a missed opportunity.
Great video, I’m with you in that I don’t buy the idea that Sega or Nintendo copied it. They clearly didn’t copy the technology behind it, and I don’t think the basic idea of “a screen on a game controller” is so unique that it could be copyrighted. I’ll bet you anything that kids in the 80s playing multiplayer NES games would have had the same idea independently.
Nintendo should,ve come with a pheripheral to allow to connect the gameboy via a controller port to the snes to play supergameboy games that way.
Remake concept. Do this but with a retropie to convert an n64 controller into a handheld emulator
Dude you should install a Gameboy IPS LCD mod. If it has the internals of a Gameboy I'm sure it's possible.
8:12 this screen fucks with my eyes
I have no idea what this video was about because I was too distracted by the U64 console.. 💓
this thing is so cool. so much potential. i can't imagine how much you paid for it lol
So much potential??? LOL, no, just a waste of money. Visual memory is just a distraction from the game.
I mean.. i understand the idea, but dont you select a formation and then see a big screen with many plays and select your final option by pressing one controller Button?? The N64 has 12 possible final selection options (up, down, left, right, R, L, Z and the 4 yellow buttons). That thing might be cool but totally not needed if you ask me...
The pokemon game for example let you open the selection and you selected one of the options by pressing A, B or one of the yellow buttions... and i think there was one for "back" as well.
My friend always changed his pokemon to counter me and then i picked the counter to his before his was even on the field. It then evolved into not picking the counter to what is on the field right now on but picking the counter to what would be the counter, so i case the counter counter would be countered..... so a extra screen isnt needed at all (dreamcast and WiiU prove this)
Funny you mention Pokemon Stadium.
Me and my sister had a rule because we used rentet Pokemon for battle whoever is pickinh 2nd need to be outside the room while the first person is selecting what pokemon to use.
We made it that way so the 2nd person would not pick the team that conters the first one
It looks like the modeling foam I used for designs
What music is in this video? Is it from Mega Man 8?
Yep! Among other games
sounds like the Wii U or the Gameboy accessory for the game cube.
#Hard4Games The NeoGeo Pocket Color had a link cable for the Dreamcast.
I'm eating some fried mince chicken right now and although the expiring date is tomorrow, I think it's spoiled. It tastes funny... but I'm still eating. Not in the mood to cook again.
Very interesting, I have never seen anything about this device before. If it had gotten released I don't think it would have been much of a success. For sport games it would have been alright I suppose but I don't see much other use for it. I was one of the biggest Dreamcast fans around in the early 2000s and even I didn't really care about the VMU. It was neat sure but I never really used any of the VMU features. I liked Sonic Adventure 2 but really could not have cared less about the Chao Garden. I loved Skies of Arcadia and would have tried Pinta's Quest on the VMU to get special items but by that time my VMU battery was dead and I didn't care enough to even replace it.
*
It woulda been just grand
For that one game that came out.
@@2NDFLB It would have had to come bundled with a game that supported it for it to catch on at all. Kind of like Starfox 64 and the rumble pak.
So it's basically a GameBoy with pre-soldered cartridge that piggybacks off a N64 controller for power and controls. That's cool, I guess? Now it can be easily backlit too :P
N64 console was the power toggle as well