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.

Ultra rare Sega AI Computer found and emulated; software rom files and sales fliers preserved

Photo curtesy of @orconut

Score one for video game preservation, or in this case, interactive edutainment software preservation. Thanks to Omar Cornut, going by @orconut on Twitter (X), as well as the website SMS Power, an ever-so-elusive Sega AI Computer has been procured and a bunch of stuff relating to it preserved online, including photos of the hardware and games, scans of sales fliers, print ads, and instruction manuals, and digital ROM files of all commercially released games. They’ve also prepared a MAME driver, allowing the AI Computer to be emulated for the very first time. 

Chances are you may not know what this is. I’ll admit, I’ve never even heard of it until now. If you’ll follow me past the break, I will sum up what this AI Computer is all about.

11 (Yes, Eleven) prototype builds and design documents for cancelled Vectorman PS2 sequel found and preserved

Vectorman is a name well regarded by fans of the Sega Genesis/Mega-Drive. Vectorman (1995) and its sequel Vectorman 2 (1996) were hallmarks of that console’s twilight years, with some truly impressive pseudo-3D graphics and fluid animation, on top of also being a legitimately fun time. It’s earned it’s honor of being one of Sega’s common picks for their many Genesis game compilations in recent times. It’s just too bad that Vectorman was never able to move beyond the Genesis, though this wasn’t for lack of trying. The original developer of the two Genesis games, BlueSky Software, had envisioned a second sequel on the Saturn that never came to pass, and other developers have wanted to bring Vectorman to the Dreamcast and beyond.

The ill-faded sequel that came closest to fruition was the PS2 game being worked on by Pseudo Interactive, the creators of Full Auto (2006) and Full Auto 2: Battlelines (Also 2006 on PS3 and 2007 on PSP), both of which were actually published by Sega. Before that, Sega announced a new Vectorman title for the PlayStation 2, simply known as Vectorman, in April 2003, with intent to release the following year. The news of the game’s cancellation came before 2003 even ended, in November, despite a positive showing at E3 earlier that same year. This was during the time when then-Sega of America CEO Peter Moore was preparing his departure from the company and shortly before the company would merge with Sammy, so internally, things were tumultuous at Sega and Vectorman did not survive this transition. What did thankfully survive was a bunch of prototype and press builds, art, and documentation on the game, which was all just found and preserved by Comby Laurent on his preservation website Sega Dreamcast Info Games Preservation.

Check in past the break for more info, and a link to check out these finds in finer detail.