Fundraiser started to rescue and preserve hundreds of Sega 3DS and DS game prototypes before August 2025

Video game preservation organizations Obscure Gamers and Video Game Preservation Museum are in the midst of a public fundraiser to help them bring in £61K to rescue some 300 prototypes and showroom demos of classic Sega games on Nintendo DS and 3DS from becoming e-waste. This includes never-before-seen early builds of memorable DS/3DS Sega classics such as Sonic Colors DS, Sonic Generations 3DS, some Mario & Sonic Olympics games, and even a DS build of Project R, better known as Rhythm Thief & The Emperor’s Treasure, which would release on Nintendo 3DS instead of DS in 2012.

Sadly, even with multiple fundraisers set up to pool money, they have not made it far reaching their goal by now, and they must raise the necessary funds before the start of August 2025. Otherwise, they may not have another chance to rescue all this precious Sega history before it returns to the e-waste bins they were pulled from. There’s still plenty of time as of this writing, so it’s too soon to give up now. We encourage you to give whatever money you can spare to help with this noble preservation effort. Obscure Gamers have promised that your money can be refunded in August at your request if the fundraiser fails, so you at least have nothing to lose if they lose, other than tons of important information on the development of these games that could be documented online for all to see, as well as the digital rom files themselves for you to try out.

Links to the various fundraisers, as well as a list of every game prototype hanging in the balance, will be below the break here.

Nintendo pulls the plug on online features for Wii and DS games

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Nintendo of America has just announced that as of May 20th, you will no longer have access to WiFi connection service on their Wii, DS and DSi games. That will include features like online play, online leaderboards and anything else that it does online. All games will work perfectly fine online.

Honestly this move makes me more weary of Nintendo and actually makes me reconsider the idea of buying a Wii U. I know most people will post and say that I’m overreacting, saying not many people play DS titles online, but it sucks knowing that if we make a party on our forums to play Phantasy Star Ø, as of May 20th, we won’t be able to play online just because Nintendo decided they didn’t want to support online services going on to the next generation.

To see all SEGA games that will be affected, hit the jump.