What could have been: Nintendo pitched for media rights to Harry Potter in 1998

The world of Harry Potter is huge, but once upon a time before the movies, before the games and merchandise it was just a series of books. That time was 1998 and Nintendo saw the potential in the series and attempted to secure the media licence to it, according to a report from Unseen64.

This would have meant that Nintendo would have had total control over what games, movies and anything else Harry Potter that wasn’t a book could have been created. Nintendo of America was behind the pitch, specifically the Nintendo Software Technology team, who put all other work aside to work on a couple of prototypes for Harry Potter games.

One was a third-person game and another one based on Quidditch. These games would have been released on the Game Boy Advance, GameCube and even the Nintendo 64 exclusively. If that doesn’t make you feel old…

Unfortunately for Nintendo they were rejected as J.K Rowling wanted to make more than just games. Warner Bros. eventually picked up the rights and made the billion dollar grossing movies, EA were given rights to the games which were released on Nintendo platforms anyway.

Unseen64 was able to get some concept art from the games that would have been, check that out here.