Outworld 2375 AD
From Sega Retro
Can anyone find this critical Outworld 2375 AD Nintendo Age thread?
- Unseen64 references a Nintendo Age thread where a collector posts an image of promotional screenshot films for Outworld 2375 AD, and later another collector (notably from Lansing) states he owns a prototype. While Unseen64 claims they're linking to the Nintendo Age thread, its instead a dead link to some website called GoCollect? It's also unarchived, and I'm not able to locate the original thread. However, I'm pretty unfamiliar with Nintendo Age. Is anyone able to somehow find the original thread, or at least a cached copy of it/some information/the text/anything?
CartridgeCulture (talk) 02:02, 4 October 2021 (EDT)
Investigatory thread 3 (archive)
- The third thread linked has a lot of really great research and information in it, but unfortunately Wayback isn't letting me archive it. Fortunately, the first two are, so until we/I/someone get that third thread archived, a temporary copy will be below. Original thread and research by BadUsername 25
https://imgur.com/a/5HbfL5D This is an update in the search for a possibly released sega genesis game, Outworld 2375 AD. My original post is here. You should really read it before reading this. https://www.reddit.com/r/lostmedia/comments/i3j51c/sega_genesis_outworld_2375_ad_possibly_the_rarest This will probably be my last post about this for now, as I believe I have reached the end of what I can do with the research currently. Hopefully others will continue the search, find a way to contact those involved, and hopefully solve this mystery. But, before I go, I wanted to compile the last bits of my research into one final post.
Barcodes:----
The first thing I want to go over since last time is the information about the barcode that I found. If you remember from my first post, a person on youtube found a copy of PGA golf for the heartbeat that was complete in box. This was one of the games that was supposed to be released alongside Outworld, but was assumed to be a prototype as there was no info about the game ever having been released. One of the things about this game that really indicated to me that it was not a prototype was the barcode on the back of the box. Prototype games would have no reason to have a barcode, so I decided to examine the barcode more closely. After enlarging the image from the video and trying to scan it on my phone, I wasn't able to get it to read. Afterwards, I tried using a photo editor to touch up the image, and after I scanned it again, to my surprise, it actually read it. From this I was able to get the barcode's UPC number and recreate the barcode using an online tool. https://imgur.com/a/cfAztSb After searching on the official barcode registry, I found that the first half of the barcode, which would be the manufacturers code, was actually registered to Heartbeat Corp. This would seemingly mean that this was not just a placeholder barcode and was actually made for retail. https://imgur.com/a/GB2wXke Unfortunately, there is no way to look up the second half of the barcode, which would be the product code, so we don't have official confirmation for that yet. I tried scanning the barcode at target, since that was the location the newspaper ad said it was sold at, but no product came up. This isn't surprising, as target deletes discontinued barcodes fairly often. If someone is able to get in contact with target HQ, it's possible they might have a database of all barcodes that were ever in the system, but I wouldn't hold my breath. I also tried comparing the barcode to the one on the heartbeat controller, just incase they decided to use the same barcode they already had as a placeholder. And while the first half, (the manufacturer code) matches, the second half looks different. This is a good sign for these games having been released. https://imgur.com/a/SkGeVCq Unfortunately, all the pictures of the barcode on the controller/Outback Joey box have been too blurry to get a code from, I've linked my best approximation of the controller's barcode here. https://imgur.com/a/WT2T5fg
The other game - found:----
While I was searching, I also stumbled across this image. It seems that the national video game museum owns a copy of the hockey game that was supposed to be released alongside the golf game and Outworld. https://imgur.com/a/AVZsurB Prototype games are very rare, and most were either destroyed, thrown away, or kept locked up in a company's archives. The odds of finding a prototype of any particular game are pretty slim. With that being said, the fact that supposed prototypes of all three of these supposedly unreleased heartbeat games have been found in different locations seems oddly coincidental. I think it's more likely that there are multiple copies of each of them, and that they aren't really prototypes at all.
PGA Golf board pics:----
While talking about the two sports games, I'd also like to go over the board pics I found of PGA golf. https://imgur.com/a/5XM9q2c Notice how the board has two stickers, one labelled upper and one labelled lower. This would be for the person assembling the chips, so he knows which chip to put in which place. I believe that this may mean that they had some intern or something assembling a few dozen of these cartridges, and he needed to know which chip to put where, as printed stickers showing the location of the chips may not have been necessary if they were only making a singular prototype copy. Also notice that these stickers are printed, instead of being handwritten like how a lot of prototype carts are. This again seems to point to the fact that there were multiple of these cartridges being made. Also, I forgot to mention earlier that the person who found the copy of PGA golf said there was sticker residue on the back of the box, possibly implying that it once had a store's stickers on it. I also found a reddit thread from the person who found the golf game, saying he was going to try to contact the CEO of heartbeat. I never saw a follow-up, so I assume either he wasn't able to contact him or he never got a reply back.
More newspaper findings:----
I was able to find a few more relevant newspaper articles since my last post. The first of which is this 1994 article. https://imgur.com/a/G9XtEsd In it, it says that the NHLPA hockey, PGA golf, and Outworld 2375 AD would be "out this fall". If we assume nothing changed after this article was released, this confirms the 1994 release date and gives us our most accurate release window yet. These games were made available for mail order sometime in fall of 1994. I also found this article published in two different newspapers, from 1995 talking about heartbeat games. https://imgur.com/a/4xmNiSL https://imgur.com/a/JPK5ypR In it, it lists the heartbeat games, and the heartbeat games that were going to be coming out. What's most interesting is that it lists games that were in development as "motorcycle racing, auto racing, and 15 to 20 other games". It lists NHLPA Hockey, PGA golf, and Outworld, simply as "other heartbeat games, implying that they were already out at the time the article was written. This same article appears in two newspapers in different parts of the country, so perhaps these games were also available for sale by mail order outside of the test market in Lansing, Michigan. There was also this unrelated article about a former heartbeat employee. I don't know if contacting him is possible, but it might be worth a shot. https://imgur.com/a/vbgbkVd
Trademark info:----
This has been discussed in the comments of my previous post, but I wanted to put it here incase people didn't see that. The trademark stuff is actually a bit complicated. When searching trademark databases for "Outworld 2375 AD" you can find the records of the trademark's history. It seems the trademark was never actually finalized, and was listed as abandoned in 1995. This doesn't rule out the game being released, as looking up other games from the same era shows that trademarks were typically registered and finalized up to a year after release, due to it being a long process. Apparently they never provided the proper documentation of the trademark being used commercially (called a "statement of use"). From looking up info about statements of use, it seems they can be somewhat difficult to get. You need to have proof of consistent use, sales can't be too few or too sporadic. Maybe they were waiting until they could sell the game outside of a test market. They were asking for extensions of the trademark registration process into 1995, up until the trademark application was abandoned, so it seems like think they wouldn't have kept doing that if it was cancelled in 1994.
Company info:----
I found this page online, talking about the history of the heartbeat company. The website doesn't site any sources as far as I can tell, so I'm not sure how reliable it is, but I thought I should put it here just in case. http://videogamekraken.com/heartbeat-personal-trainer-catalyst It says that in 1994, heartbeat transferred all of its assets to a sister corporation, so it is possibly that this sister corperation ran the 1995 test market in Lansing Michigan.
Heartbeat console box and documentation:----
I was able to find a few pictures of the heartbeat console with all of it's packaging, and I think a few things can be learned from it. https://imgur.com/a/gza2TmY Firstly, look at the document that came with the console labelled "The Heartbeat Personal Trainer Instruction Manual". One of the biggest things about the copy of PGA golf that made people think it was a prototype was the manual just being a white piece of paper with the instructions printed on it. Now that we can see the console's manual, which we know was released, it doesn't seem that strange. The console's manual was literally just a few sheets of printer paper stapled together. This was a small company, and it seems printing instructions like this wasn't an uncommon thing for them to do. I've also found this letter that came with copies of the heartbeat console/controller. https://imgur.com/a/a3mwxci It confirms that Justin Hall-Tipping was indeed the head of the company. If someone was able to contact him, he would probably have the answers we're looking for. On a semi-unrelated note, the letter also says that Heartbeat would send owners a free updated copy of outback joey. Maybe this means that early copies of outback joey were either unfinished, or had a lot of glitches. There was a youtube video where someone compared two different board versions for outback joey, so maybe one of those versions was the updated copy mentioned in the letter. There was also this letter, where someone must have ordered replacement parts. https://imgur.com/a/yJRptrx It was signed by the product manager, Adam Benjamin. This seems like it would be a very common name, so it's probably impossible to find him today, but I though I should mention it just in case.
Promotional material----
I was able to find pictures of a pamphlet that was sent out to advertise Heartbeat. https://www.reddit.com/r/retrogaming/comments/51m99l/pics_of_the_brochure_for_the_heartbeat_personal/ In it, it includes the same screenshot of Outworld from the newspaper ad, as well as a more complete description of the game. https://imgur.com/a/ouf0sIo "Kidnapped by intergalactic criminals, you have been pitted in a race for the ultimate prize - your freedom. Race through a planet which began as an experiment in artificial development. Using your heavily armed space hovercraft, you must outmaneuver environmental mutations as well as the deadly inhabitants in a fight for your survival. Go too slow and your aircraft will crash... too fast and it will burn up. Close the hatch, buckle up, and hit the turbos" EDIT: I originally thought the text was too blurry to read, but it turns out the text is only blurry on mobile. On desktop you can read the description clearly. I've updated the description and replaced the picture.
Conclusion----
I'd really like to thank everyone for all of the support I have received on my previous posts. I likely would not have continued the research if there wasn't so much interest. After all of the information I've found, I really believe there is a good chance that this game exists, and was indeed released. As I said earlier, with this post, I've really reached the end of what I can do with this currently. For now I might try to find people to help with the search, or to help spread the word. Hopefully others will continue the research after me. There are still many people who might be able to be contacted, from the person who supposedly found a copy of Outworld in Lansing, to the people who were involved with the company, and even Target HQ. With all the interest in these posts, I really believe that people will continue to search for this. This kind of thing is really fascinating to me, and I'm really glad to see others taking an interest in my research. Any comments or suggestions are always welcome. And as always, thank you for reading.