This article is about the alleged Zelda III cartridge hoax. For the third official The Legend of Zelda release, see A Link to the Past.

The Zelda III Cartridge Hoax was a Zelda community epidemic, in October of 2005, that focused around an eBay listing of an alleged beta cartridge for "The Legend of Zelda: The Triforce Saga".

Background

The supposed label on the front of the beta cart.

According to Joystiq.com, an unnamed seller on October 15, 2005 listed "The Legend of Zelda: The Triforce Saga" on eBay, at a starting price of 20 dollars. The cartridge itself was a typical, gray American cart with a simple, typewritten information label on its front; the label not only mentioned the game's title, but noted its version (0.6.24), year produced (1990), and copyright (Nintendo).[1] To increase legitimacy, the game's owner, known only as Richard Vialoux,[2] tested the cartridge on a traditional Nintendo Entertainment System and provided a picture of the game's title screen: the Triforce is clearly visible in the background while the traditional Zelda logo sits in the foreground, with "The Triforce Saga" as the tagline.[3] By the time the listing ended, on October 22, 2005, the cartridge had garnered a final bid close to $3000, put up by listing winner "Knight 7", according to Joystiq.com.[4] Two days later, Richard told Joystiq.com that he believed Knight 7 seemed to have a connection with the popular Canadian game development company, Silicon Knights (Metal Gear, Too Human, Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem).[5]

Response from Silicon Knights

The CEO and Founder of Silicon Knights, Dennis Dyack, contacted Joystiq.com after reading a previous post on the site linking the development company with the purchase of the beta game. The letter from Silicon Knights to Joystiq.com is as follows:

Zelda III. The alleged photograph of the title screen to

We saw your recent posting at 1, wherein you imply that Silicon Knights has purchased Zelda III, apparently under the name, Knight 7.

I can affirmatively state that our company, Silicon Knights, has made no such purchase, and we would appreciate your correction of the information on your website to reflect that fact. With respect to the person using the name Knight 7, we are currently investigating whether anyone using that web name is employed by Silicon Knights. Regardless, however, I can confirm right now that no such person was ever authorized by me or anyone else with authority at Silicon Knights to make such a purchase, in the company name or otherwise. To the extent that some person is using our trademarked company name in an unauthorized manner, we will deal with that directly. In the meantime, we wanted to set the record straight with respect to our corporate activities in view of your article.

Please feel free to contact me directly if you have any questions regarding this matter.

Sincerely,

Dennis Dyack President and Founder, Silicon Knights[2][6]

The Verdict and Behind the Hoax

Mechanically, The Hylia, a prominent Zelda fansite in the community, noted that Nintendo Entertainment System beta cartridges could not be played on a typical system, at least not without peripherals such as Game Genie, one of the original "game enhancement" devices tailored to a Nintendo system.[7] Furthermore, Nintendo was in development of a Zelda III in 1988, only one year after the release of The Adventure of Link; however, the game itself was never considered for any system but the Super Famicom, receiving the "go ahead" in 1990.[7] While the game never saw fruition, ideas and parts of the game were included in the Japanese release of The Legend of Zelda: Triforce of the Gods and the American release of A Link to the Past in 1991.

Trivia

In June of 2006, yet another listing appeared on eBay concerning Zelda III, this time as a Super Nintendo cartridge, partnered with few other early release and beta cartridges of games such as Earthbound , StarFox , and the NES version of Tetris. GameSetWatch, a general gaming site, originally reported the listing; however, no further development of this story has been reported.[8]

Gallery

Another, different image of a Zelda III title screen.

The official Zelda III cart made by Nintendo, known as The Legend of Zelda: Triforce of the Gods .

Another attempt at a beta Zelda III hoax, this time on the Super Nintendo.