In 2019, UK bargain store Aldi attempted a publicity stunt known as the "Teatime Takedown", where parents would send Aldi their childrens' usernames on gaming platforms (with the service being provided for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles, and unusually the streaming platform Twitch) and the supermarket would send professional gamers to defeat the child in-game so they would eat their food, though Aldi claimed that the effectiveness of the program may vary. Despite a released commercial for the campaign showing children "rage quitting" FPS games, the hired eSports teams, originating from Veloce, specialized in racing games. This sparked massive backlash within the UK eSports community, to the point where Resolve eSports offered to send its players to help kids fight back against the bullies. Aldi would eventually cancel the campaign and send coupons to those who complained as a form of apology. Print adverts were made, but are not known to have been printed in any magazines or catalogues, and radio and till reciept ads were planned.
The game was originally planned to release on PC and it even had a completed port. However, this didn't happen. According to Patrick Deupree (one of the game's programmers), this was "due to powers beyond our control".
A TV adaptation of the de Blob franchise was in production around 2010 to be aired on the SyFy TV channel on a new children's block, which would've used Blob in its branding. This deal got so far that SyFy Kids' logo was included on trailers and promotional items for de Blob 2. Due to the sequel's underperformance, the cartoon would be cancelled, and given Blob's prevalence in preliminary branding and the lack of knowledge on what other series were being planned if any, the cartoon's cancellation likely also led to the SyFy Kids block being cancelled too. SyFy Kids would later be revived in 2013, but airing on the Asian and South African versions of KidsCo with a lineup almost entirely comprised of reruns and syndicated programming.
In 2013, a Kingdom Hearts online mobile game was in development that never saw the light of day. It was to be called "Kingdom Hearts: Fragmented Keys". The game was rumored to feature customizable avatar characters (like Union Cross). It would also have been in 3D instead of Union cross' 2D art style. Most interesting and exciting of all though (gathered from concept art no less) was the Disney world list as the game would feature returning worlds like: Agrabah, Wonderland, a Lilo & Stitch Hawaii world, Space Paranoids/The Grid, London/Neverland, and Dwarf Woodlands. It also included worlds that didn't appear in the series yet but would appear in later games like Union Cross and Kingdom Hearts III, such as: Arendell (Frozen), Kingdom of Corona (Tangled), and Niceland/Game Central Station (Wreck-It Ralph). Finally, and most shockingly, a world based on the Star Wars franchise, although this world's chronology is unknown as concept art show different conflicting eras, such as an image of characters Anakin, Obi-wan, Padme, and Master Yoda in their exact looks from Star Wars: The Clone Wars movie and series in a separatist gunship's hanger as well as a planet that looks similar to Tatooine and an anachronistic Death Star power station room. It is unknown why this game was cancelled.
The version of Panel de Pon included on Nintendo Puzzle Collection was originally intended to be released on the Nintendo 64 in Japan, and a prototype featuring the Panel de Pon fairy characters is known to exist. It did see release on the console in other regions as Pokémon Puzzle League, however.
The SwordQuest series was a series of 4 games developed by Atari, each one having an associated contest to win a one-of-a-kind item from the game made of real gold by finding clues in the game and using them to uncover hidden messages in the attached comic book, then coming to Atari headquarters to compete in a contest version of the respective game. The advertised prizes were:
•Talisman of Penultimate Truth, Earthworld's prize •Chalice of Light, Fireworld's prize •Crown of Life, Waterworld's prize •The Philosopher's Stone, Airworld's prize •The Sword of Ultimate Sorcery, the grand prize
Halfway through the series, the video game crash of 1983 hit, and it was put to a halt, leaving Airworld, the Philosopher's Stone, and the Sword of Ultimate Sorcery unreleased. The Chalice of Light is the only item known to still exist, with all others being believed to have been melted down at some point.
In Atari 50, a game based on Airworld would see release, though it was not based on the work done for the game back in the 1980s.
Norbetina does not become a ninja by the end of No. 11 Downing Street: The Adventures of Ninja Nanny & Sherrlock Sheltie. The ending of the game teases that she will become a ninja in the second instalment, which never released.
The Atari 2600 version of Klax - also the final official release of the Atari 2600's lifespan, releasing in 1990 - was planned for release in the US, as proven by the existence of at least 9 NTSC prototypes using the final ROM, but only came out in PAL regions, likely due to the 2600's waning popularity going into the 1990s.
Hard 'n' Heavy was originally conceived as a sequel to The Great Giana Sisters titled Giana 2 - Arthur and Martha in Future World, but was changed due to the threats the developers had received from Nintendo over the previous Giana game. Screenshots and a box art for Giana 2 exist, and show that seemingly only the character of Giana was removed in the transition to Hard 'n' Heavy, but the version of the game with Giana is not known to exist.
Based on evidence from the book Video Game Quest and unused graphics within the game's code, Snoopy's Magic Show was likely originally going to be an original IP, with the title of either Death Ball or Heart Attack.
According to the British magazine Nintendo Magazine System, before settling on Yoshi's Island characters for Tetris Attack, Nintendo reportedly asked Rare to replace Panel de Pon's fairies with characters from the Killer Instinct series.
The existence of Sonic's Edusoft was first exposed to the public not with a prototype release or old magazines, as most cancelled games come to be known through, but rather a mysterious, unsourced Wikipedia article with a single screenshot. The combination of the article's lack of quality and the sheer quality of the game's graphics for a Master System title made many believe it was an elaborate hoax, as was common on Wikipedia at the time, up until an anonymous programmer for the game visited the Sega Master System fan forum SMS Power! and provided further information and screenshots, before privately giving Sonic fan wiki Sonic Retro access to the ROM, confirming the game to be real.
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In September 2021, Neopets attempted to enter the budding Non-fungible Token market with a project called the "Neopets Metaverse", predictably sparking major backlash from the Neopets fandom citing pre-existing criticisms and negative stigmas surrounding NFTs. However, much less predictable were the string of controversies that followed, which involved using the fansite Dress to Impress to make their NFTs (notably signified by one of the tokens having a glitch only present on Dress to Impress and not the official Neopets site), promotion of an R-rated NFT collection titled "Horny Hedgehogs", banning the word "gay" from their Discord server but permitting homophobic slurs, portraying those opposed to NFTs as the "Soyjak" meme, and in secret planning to get the main game developers to implement long-requested features so fans would "shut up" about the NFT project.
When the project first spread, the Neopets Twitter account stated in a direct message that it was a scam, putting doubt on its legitimacy, but the main brand would later would endorse the project. The most infamous endorsement came when the winner of an art contest ended up being an anti-NFT protest image, which they removed and - after being called out - subtly censored it by compressing it so hard that it couldn't be read without extremely close observance.
After two years, Neopets ultimately announced in July 2023 that it would be completely shuttering the Neopets Metaverse project after former CEO of the Metaverse division Dominic Law brokered a "management buyout deal", and that the game would no longer have any cryptocurrency or NFT elements.
Nintendo planned to release the 64DD in North America and even manufactured test units with fully translated BIOSes and functional region locking. However, the idea was ultimately dropped due to the add-on's low sales in Japan. Concrete proof of these plans wouldn't become public until 2016, when YouTuber Jason Lindsey (a.k.a. MetalJesusRocks) found a surviving test unit and verified its legitimacy with former Nintendo of America employee Mark DeLoura.
According to an Electronic Gaming Monthly preview article, Cool Spot was originally a Reversi clone like Spot: The Video Game, titled Spot II - the graphics used in Cool Spot seem to have been reused from cutscenes in the cancelled game.
The Madden curse was an urban legend which claimed that athletes who appeared on the box of Madden games would either under-perform or sustain an injury in the season following their game's release. After a 16-year streak of "bad luck" starting from Garrison Hearst's appearance on the box of Madden NFL 99 in 1998, the first Madden game to feature a cover athlete and not John Madden himself, the "curse" would finally be broken in 2014, when Calvin Johnson managed to have one of the best seasons in his career following his appearance on the box of Madden NFL 15. Although the streak ended, the curse would strike sporadically over the continuning years, but so far has not begun another continuing streak of bad luck.
In 2010, a film adaptation of the Madden curse was announced by EA, but no news has surfaced on it since and it can be assumed cancelled.
Bio Force Ape is a game that was never released - it did, before it's cancellation, get a spotlight in Nintendo Power, creating a level of curiosity surrounding it within NES fan communities. Capitalizing off of this curiosity, a post would be made on the Digital Press forum in 2005 claiming to show screenshots of a leaked prototype. While the first post appeared legitimate, the hoax would eventually be unraveled starting with a screenshot of a glitched super move that was "so powerful [that] it messes up the game's graphics", which humorously made it appear that Bio Force Ape was unleashing a powerful fart attack, as a set of glitched graphics appeared next to a crouching animation. The poster, going under the username PaulB812, would refuse to dump the game and refer to anybody who asked for it to be released as either "communists" or "butter-slathered... hoarding fatties", before finally unveiling the prank with a game screenshot of a cutscene where a fat butter monster points out that the ape is "worth 2K monies[sic]", before the ape punches him while saying "EAT COMMUNISM!" A real prototype would be leaked in 2010.
The reptilian puffs of smoke that emerge when Mario ground pounds inside a giant Goomba Shoe in the Super Mario Bros. 3 style of the Super Mario Maker series are updated sprites from an unreleased and highly experimental SNES prototype known as Super Donkey.
Despite being marketed as one of the two-games-in-one packs that were popular on the Game Boy Advance, neither game included in Looney Tunes Double Pack was ever released separately. The game's copyright information before the title screen lists both of the included games as separate copyrighted entities, meaning they may have been intended to be released as separate, more expansive titles at some point.
In 2019, UK bargain store Aldi attempted a publicity stunt known as the "Teatime Takedown", where parents would send Aldi their childrens' usernames on gaming platforms (with the service being provided for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles, and unusually the streaming platform Twitch) and the supermarket would send professional gamers to defeat the child in-game so they would eat their food, though Aldi claimed that the effectiveness of the program may vary. Despite a released commercial for the campaign showing children "rage quitting" FPS games, the hired eSports teams, originating from Veloce, specialized in racing games. This sparked massive backlash within the UK eSports community, to the point where Resolve eSports offered to send its players to help kids fight back against the bullies. Aldi would eventually cancel the campaign and send coupons to those who complained as a form of apology. Print adverts were made, but are not known to have been printed in any magazines or catalogues, and radio and till reciept ads were planned.
A TV adaptation of the de Blob franchise was in production around 2010 to be aired on the SyFy TV channel on a new children's block, which would've used Blob in its branding. This deal got so far that SyFy Kids' logo was included on trailers and promotional items for de Blob 2. Due to the sequel's underperformance, the cartoon would be cancelled, and given Blob's prevalence in preliminary branding and the lack of knowledge on what other series were being planned if any, the cartoon's cancellation likely also led to the SyFy Kids block being cancelled too. SyFy Kids would later be revived in 2013, but airing on the Asian and South African versions of KidsCo with a lineup almost entirely comprised of reruns and syndicated programming.
In 2013, a Kingdom Hearts online mobile game was in development that never saw the light of day. It was to be called "Kingdom Hearts: Fragmented Keys". The game was rumored to feature customizable avatar characters (like Union Cross). It would also have been in 3D instead of Union cross' 2D art style. Most interesting and exciting of all though (gathered from concept art no less) was the Disney world list as the game would feature returning worlds like: Agrabah, Wonderland, a Lilo & Stitch Hawaii world, Space Paranoids/The Grid, London/Neverland, and Dwarf Woodlands. It also included worlds that didn't appear in the series yet but would appear in later games like Union Cross and Kingdom Hearts III, such as: Arendell (Frozen), Kingdom of Corona (Tangled), and Niceland/Game Central Station (Wreck-It Ralph). Finally, and most shockingly, a world based on the Star Wars franchise, although this world's chronology is unknown as concept art show different conflicting eras, such as an image of characters Anakin, Obi-wan, Padme, and Master Yoda in their exact looks from Star Wars: The Clone Wars movie and series in a separatist gunship's hanger as well as a planet that looks similar to Tatooine and an anachronistic Death Star power station room. It is unknown why this game was cancelled.
The SwordQuest series was a series of 4 games developed by Atari, each one having an associated contest to win a one-of-a-kind item from the game made of real gold by finding clues in the game and using them to uncover hidden messages in the attached comic book, then coming to Atari headquarters to compete in a contest version of the respective game. The advertised prizes were:
Hard 'n' Heavy was originally conceived as a sequel to The Great Giana Sisters titled Giana 2 - Arthur and Martha in Future World, but was changed due to the threats the developers had received from Nintendo over the previous Giana game. Screenshots and a box art for Giana 2 exist, and show that seemingly only the character of Giana was removed in the transition to Hard 'n' Heavy, but the version of the game with Giana is not known to exist.
Based on evidence from the book Video Game Quest and unused graphics within the game's code, Snoopy's Magic Show was likely originally going to be an original IP, with the title of either Death Ball or Heart Attack.
Nintendo planned to release the 64DD in North America and even manufactured test units with fully translated BIOSes and functional region locking. However, the idea was ultimately dropped due to the add-on's low sales in Japan. Concrete proof of these plans wouldn't become public until 2016, when YouTuber Jason Lindsey (a.k.a. MetalJesusRocks) found a surviving test unit and verified its legitimacy with former Nintendo of America employee Mark DeLoura.
According to an Electronic Gaming Monthly preview article, Cool Spot was originally a Reversi clone like Spot: The Video Game, titled Spot II - the graphics used in Cool Spot seem to have been reused from cutscenes in the cancelled game.
Bio Force Ape is a game that was never released - it did, before it's cancellation, get a spotlight in Nintendo Power, creating a level of curiosity surrounding it within NES fan communities. Capitalizing off of this curiosity, a post would be made on the Digital Press forum in 2005 claiming to show screenshots of a leaked prototype. While the first post appeared legitimate, the hoax would eventually be unraveled starting with a screenshot of a glitched super move that was "so powerful [that] it messes up the game's graphics", which humorously made it appear that Bio Force Ape was unleashing a powerful fart attack, as a set of glitched graphics appeared next to a crouching animation. The poster, going under the username PaulB812, would refuse to dump the game and refer to anybody who asked for it to be released as either "communists" or "butter-slathered... hoarding fatties", before finally unveiling the prank with a game screenshot of a cutscene where a fat butter monster points out that the ape is "worth 2K monies[sic]", before the ape punches him while saying "EAT COMMUNISM!" A real prototype would be leaked in 2010.
The reptilian puffs of smoke that emerge when Mario ground pounds inside a giant Goomba Shoe in the Super Mario Bros. 3 style of the Super Mario Maker series are updated sprites from an unreleased and highly experimental SNES prototype known as Super Donkey.
