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On January 23, 2024, a Reddit user claiming to be an unknown developer on the North American localization of the game revealed that a hidden music track with the filename SEAMAN.ADX could be triggered by setting the Dreamcast's internal clock to the game's North American release week, the week of August 6, 2000, and then giving specific answers to 20 "tracked" questions in-game for the music to play. This techno track is made up of various voice clips of the game's narrator Leonard Nimoy and Seaman's voice actor Jeff Kramer, and is notable for ending with a unique and rare voice line by Seaman addressing an inevitable innuendo with the game's title:
"Listen, if my name was semen, I wouldn't be swimming in this tank. I'd be swimming in your mama."
The developer then explained how he snuck the Easter egg into the game:
"Seaman was the first game I worked on. (Implementing the English script into game logic.) […] it was late one night toward the end of development, there were a few mb left on the disc (Seaman has a TON of audio), and I wanted to put *some* sort of Easter Egg in the game. But I also kinda freaked out at the last moment - it was my first game, and what if it caused some sort of problem and/or was too easily discovered or problematic? So I ended up locking it behind the DC's clock - you have to have the internal clock set to release week. That, and you have to answer exactly as I would have. My recollection is there were about 20 "tracked" answers. I threw the song together in an hour or so using Sonic Foundry's Acid […] it was pretty popular at the time."
An earlier logo for Star Fox 64 found within the 2020 Nintendo Gigaleak seems to indicate that its subtitle was, at one point, going to be "The Cosmic Crisis".
The subtitle of Star Fox: Assault was suggested by Nintendo of America. Initially, there were legal concerns as Namco had already trademarked the name "Assault" for their 1988 arcade game of the same name. Fortunately for Nintendo, the trademark was only valid within Japan, and Namco, who were already the developers for Star Fox: Assault, had granted them permission to use the title.
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Prior to the official announcement of Yoshi's Crafted World's title, a fake leak was posted on 4chan listing off future Nintendo games, containing the title of Yoshi's Crafted World. This leak was humorous in nature, contrasting legitimate sounding titles such as Animal Crossing: Town Founder and Paper Mario: Clay Catastrophe with obvious jokes such as Metroid: Equestrian Races and Rhythm Heaven and Hell - this lead to a short-lived theory that the leak was indeed real and slid in the joke names for humorous effect. Over time, reveals of installments in other franchises featured in the leak that didn't line up would show that Crafted World was simply a lucky guess. However, some other articles from the leak, such as a multi-part DLC pass for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Pokémon Diamond and Pearl remakes, a Tokyo 2020 Mario & Sonic Olympics game (albeit without Pac-Man), a Switch port of Overwatch, and the at-the-time-believed-to-be-cancelled Pikmin 4 would come into fruition later by coincidence.
Throughout 2022, there were several leaks in regards to the existence of Silent Hill: The Short Message. First, screenshots were leaked of a playable teaser for the game, where it was known under the working title "Silent Hill: Sakura". Then, in both September and December of that year, the game received age ratings in both South Korea and Taiwan, respectively. Additionally, when Konami began hiring for upcoming projects based on Silent Hill, one of the projects was an unannounced in-house game, which would later turn out to be Silent Hill: The Short Message.
X was originally pitched under the name Eclipse and was developed under the title Lunar Chase. The single-letter rename came at the request of Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi, who contacted director Yoshio Sakamoto early in the morning after playing the game.
The Lunar Chase name was retained for a planned English localization of the game, which was ultimately scrapped due to fears from Nintendo of America that international players would find the game's presentation and design too complex for a handheld title. Creator and programmer Dylan Cuthbert additionally blamed the cancellation on a presumed lack of interest from retailers in the United States. A prototype of the English version would eventually surface in 2020 as part of the Gigaleak, a massive leak of internal server data from Nintendo. The Eclipse pitch, meanwhile, was released to the public by the Video Game History foundation three years later.
In a 2005 interview with the game's producer Koji Igarashi published in the official Konami strategy guide, he explained the decision to change the series' title in the domestic Japanese market from "Castlevania" back to "Akumajo Dracula".
The title change to Castlevania in Japan initially occurred because the Akumajo Dracula games enjoyed a larger market share in Europe and America compared to Japan. Consequently, more reports and information about the games were available in those regions, and they were released there first. In the recent past, news from outside Japan was harder to access, but with the advent of the internet, Japanese users could now easily stay informed. However, there was a concern that Japanese players might not immediately recognize the equivalence between Castlevania and Akumajo Dracula, so the main title of the previous game Lament of Innocence was changed to Castlevania in Japan to address this.
Subsequently, for Curse of Darkness, the decision was made to revert to the original title because the team felt that the Castlevania name had become associated with trilogies, inadvertently making it challenging for fans to find information about the Akumajo Dracula titles. The team wanted to ensure clarity for Japanese fans and clear up any confusion among Akumajo Dracula fans about if Castlevania was supposed to be Akumajo Dracula.
According to the Scandinavian manual for Mr. Gimmick, the girl Yumetaro must rescue is named Mary. In all other releases of the game, she is unnamed. During development, she was planned to be named either "Kasumi" or "Ayaka".
In the first level of Ninja Gaiden Black, if the player dies 3 times, the game will ask if they wish to "abandon the way of the Ninja?" After double verifying "Yes", a scene of Ayane coming to Ryu's collapsed body will play, unlocking Ninja Dog Mode, an easier difficulty setting. From then on she will provide additional messages throughout the game that won't be seen in a regular playthrough, with healing items and artifacts that make the game easier. Once per chapter, if the player (or an allied NPC) dies in this mode, the game will provide additional healing items. In addition, all Results scores will say "Ninja Dog", and the title screen will feature an image of Ayane instead of Ryu.
When a US release for Drill Dozer was first announced, it was titled Screw Breaker, a shortened version of its Japanese title Screw Breaker: Goushin Dorirurero.
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When Software Creations' SNES Batman pitch first leaked, its ROM header was modified to read "Real Shitty Batman!"
The Nintendo Entertainment System versions of Defender II, Joust, and Millipede were all conceived as part of a failed deal between Nintendo and Atari to distribute the Famicom internationally. Development was outsourced to HAL Laboratory, who decided to publish the games themselves in 1987 after Nintendo took international distribution of the console into their own hands two years prior. One additional title was put together as part of the Atari deal, but it was never released, with none of the parties involved revealing what it was.
Because of the circumstances behind their conception, the Japanese versions of these three games all feature title screens reminiscent of Famicom launch titles, with the copyright information uniformly reading "COPYRIGHT 1983 ATARI". When Nintendo of America exported the games to North America in 1988, the title screens were made more elaborate and the copyright info was updated. The ways of accessing the game's modes are also changed in the North American release; instead of having them all available on the title screen, the player must press Start in Defender II and Millipede to bring up a menu (itself displaying additional copyright information). In Joust, pressing Start skips the menu and automatically begins Game A; the player must press Select in order to access the menu.
The development of Joust as a launch title for an Atari-distributed system would have a prominent knock-on effect on HAL and Nintendo's future. The game was one of the first titles to be programmed by Satoru Iwata, who would go on to become a vital asset to HAL thanks to his coding skills before becoming Nintendo's president in 2002, and his experiences developing Joust would help him program Balloon Fight.
There exists a myth that claims that the giggling scent hound from Duck Hunt's real name is "Mr. Peepers", also the name of a 1950s sitcom. This name is not mentioned in any official Nintendo material, but has been brought up as the dog's name on the internet as far back as at least 2006, and would be cited by many legitimate sources as the dog's name up until the release of Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS, which named the character simply "Duck Hunt" or "Dog". To this day, it remains unknown where the idea of the dog being named "Mr. Peepers" originated and how it spread to be such a popular title for the character.
The game's title is not known to be a parody of an existing title: while many assume it's a parody of the 2014 adventure game D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die, this has not been confirmed by the devs, who stated on the game's Steam Community page that "There might [be] quite a list of interpretation[s,] but for us it is just a matching title for a new Larry adventure ;-)". Series creator Al Lowe (who was not involved in the title) stated prior to release that he was unimpressed by the title.
The game was originally intended to be the fifth installment of the Super Mario Bros. series, with two leaked prototypes from December 1994 featuring a title screen with the logo Super Mario Bros. 5: Yoshi's Island. Come the final release, and the prefix would be shortened to Super Mario. This explains why the international release was titled Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, as the original Super Mario World was subtitled Super Mario Bros. 4 in Japan.
Additionally, the later of the two prototypes features a radically different design for the logo, using a much sleeker and blockier font. The final release would revert to the earlier logo, barring the aforementioned truncated prefix.
Tonic Trouble's working titles were "Ed" and "Hed". The title of the game, having changed roughly 8 times through development, was decided through a vote on the IGN website. The poll is not known to have been preserved, and thus it is unknown what other titles were in consideration for the game.
The title for Cartoon Network: Punch Time Explosion originated as an in-joke within Cartoon Network, being shortened from the joke title Cartoon Network: Super Fist Crazy Punch Time Explosion. The original title was Cartoon Network: Superstar Rumble, which had to be changed for unknown legal concerns.
The September 2000 issue of Nintendo Power contains a "Nintendo Power Online" section on page 12, featuring an article titled "Mamma Mia! It's Waluigi!" The accompanying text introduces Waluigi to readers, reveals that he has his own website: www.waluigi.com, and claims to have an upcoming online game called "Waluigi's Toenail Clipping Party".
At the time of the Nintendo Power issue's release, www.waluigi.com was identical to the official website for Mario Tennis, www.mariotennis.com. One of the files hosted on the Mario Tennis website was the Adobe Flash file "toenails_coming.swf", which is an advertisement for the game instead titled "Waluigi's Foot Fault" depicting him showing his bare feet and unkempt toenails (he also occasionally blinks). Another file hosted on the website was "toenails.swf", which was supposedly the game itself. Catalogued alongside this file are two additional .swf files named "paint_the_lines" and "deface_painting", which could be evidence of other Flash games hosted on the Mario Tennis website.
However, the waluigi.com domain has since been turned into a redirect to the official Nintendo website. The toenails.swf file was not preserved, and as of 2023 has not resurfaced.
There is a Vietnamese noodle shop in the game called inPhởmous. This is a fun play on the words for the Vietnamese noodle dish of Phở and the title of the game.
The originally planned title for Missile Command was "Armageddon", but this name was vetoed by upper management due to issues that children would have with spelling and pronouncing the name. It's also suggested that various members of Atari's upper management didn't know what the word actually meant. As such, the alternative title of "Missile Command" came about.
An earlier logo for Star Fox 64 found within the 2020 Nintendo Gigaleak seems to indicate that its subtitle was, at one point, going to be "The Cosmic Crisis".
X was originally pitched under the name Eclipse and was developed under the title Lunar Chase. The single-letter rename came at the request of Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi, who contacted director Yoshio Sakamoto early in the morning after playing the game.
The Nintendo Entertainment System versions of Defender II, Joust, and Millipede were all conceived as part of a failed deal between Nintendo and Atari to distribute the Famicom internationally. Development was outsourced to HAL Laboratory, who decided to publish the games themselves in 1987 after Nintendo took international distribution of the console into their own hands two years prior. One additional title was put together as part of the Atari deal, but it was never released, with none of the parties involved revealing what it was.
The game was originally intended to be the fifth installment of the Super Mario Bros. series, with two leaked prototypes from December 1994 featuring a title screen with the logo Super Mario Bros. 5: Yoshi's Island. Come the final release, and the prefix would be shortened to Super Mario. This explains why the international release was titled Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, as the original Super Mario World was subtitled Super Mario Bros. 4 in Japan.
The September 2000 issue of Nintendo Power contains a "Nintendo Power Online" section on page 12, featuring an article titled "Mamma Mia! It's Waluigi!" The accompanying text introduces Waluigi to readers, reveals that he has his own website: www.waluigi.com, and claims to have an upcoming online game called "Waluigi's Toenail Clipping Party".
