Around September/October 1990, Nintendo Power magazine announced that they would bring the highly acclaimed Maxis game SimCity to the Nintendo consoles on the market at the time, both the SNES and the NES. The magazine listed a release date of this for simultaneous release for Spring of 1991. In the November/December 1990 issue two screenshots from the game were published and those two screenshots were for a very long time the only proof that a NES version of the game actually existed.
Almost 15 years later, Nintendo Power addressed the unreleased game once again, reffering it as “A lost treasure of the past”. Shown in the screenshot below, they say the game was never released “because of bad timing”. It also states the game was “far in developement” yet unfortunately “canceled”(Nintendo power made a spelling mistake there XD)
SimCity for the NES was found and uploaded online in 2018 thanks to the Video Game History Foundation, so we can expect it to be soon available on many other ROM sites such as Gamulator, to be easily preserved.
Thanks a lot to NES World for these screenshots!
Video (From Grooveraider YT Channel):
What do you think about this unseen game? Give your vote!
Would you like to add more info, screens or videos to this page? Add a comment below!
- Quark (Quantic Dream) [Dreamcast – Cancelled] - 24-03-2024
- Fortris [PC/Playstation/Dreamcast – Cancelled] - 09-03-2024
- Gorkamorka [PC / Dreamcast – Cancelled] - 16-12-2023
Here’s a clip from Video Power I just uploaded featuring Simcity on the NES at the CES 1991
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfJgZI9C2nk&feature=channel_page
Thanks for the video Grooveraider, i have added it in the page :)
Good news, while not currently available online, at least one of the two prototypes of the NES port has been successfully dumped.
Sim City on NES!!!!!
http://nintendoage.com/index.cfm?FuseAction=Blog.View&Blog_Id=1&Id=1754
Good news guys, If you didn’t hear, the rom was finally dumped! Unfortunately, we just have to wait for the rom to be released out in the public. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/01/see-the-long-lost-nes-prototype-of-simcity/ I hope someone who has the cartridge (from all that bidding off of that cart) dumps and shares the game earlier than them so we can finally get our hands on the game.
After 27 years or so, .ROM of NES SimCity was finally released online to the public by Frank Cifaldi from the VGHF :D
https://gamehistory.org/simcity/