Lite: Remembering Pokemon digital distribution 1996 style

Digital distribution and downloadable content are big business these days. You can download whole new campaigns, maps, tracks, characters and horse armour.

But in 1996 these kind of things hadn’t even been thought up yet in the console realm, PC games had mods sure but for consoles or handhelds to have DLC it was unheard of.

So how did you get extra content into you game in the 90s? There was no simple internet download, Nintendo events were seldom held outside of Melbourne and Sydney (in this case there was an event in Perth) so what else is there left to do? What if you can’t get to one of these events?

Send your cartridge into Nintendo.

Now for someone the same age as me this mightn’t seem like a crazy idea, but if you were born the later side of 1992 this might seem crazy. Vook, this crazy man, mailing games to Nintendo, what madness is this?

Yes it’s true, for me and many other people to get our hands on Mew in Pokemon Red and Blue we needed to wait 21 days to post the cartridge to Nintendo, have them spent 5 seconds to load him on and then wait for it to come back.

To prove we’re not making this up, one of our writers, Daniel Miller, scanned his letter he found while digging through his old gaming stuff. I also got the letter as well, I sent off both cartridges we had here at home, even though you were only allowed 1!

I don’t think that Games Hotline number works anymore, but that’s for another story. That main number though still works, 1300 3 MARIO. If you ever do need to send anything to Nintendo.

We doubt they’re taking Pokemon Red and Blue carts anymore though.

Photo’s by: Daniel Miller