This could have been amazing!

Yasuyuki Honne may work at Monolith Soft now, but back in the day he was part of Namco. News of the Iwata-san book coming from Earthbound creator Shigesato Itoi gave Honne reason to take to Twitter and share a story involving both Itoi and Iwata from back in the day. According to Honne, the two companies had a pitch session about potentially creating an Earthbound game for the GameCube.

“Looking forward to the Iwata-san book. I met both Iwata-san and Itoi-san in 2003 when Namco and Nintendo were considering to make a GameCube version for Mother (Earthbound). I created a mockup which was showed to Iwata-san. I felt Ito-san wasn’t interested, and suspected so as the conversation continued…

Then Itoi-san said, ‘In any case, perhaps Iwata-kun should come up with the story?’ Everyone in the room gasped. Iwata looked shocked. In the end the conversation drifted, but Itoi-san amused himself with the idea of the ‘felt taste’ that resembled America in the 80s. So this is the picture that I thought would never see the day of light again. My memories of Summer 2003.”

Honne shared the images you see in this post, which were apparently part of the mock-up he put together for the pitch session. Man, what an amazing bit of history to see surface after all these years!